Inspiration Dissemination

Linus Stoltz is a graduate student in the Marine Resource Management Master’s Program. Only in his second term, Linus is already diving in to a project that means a lot to Oregon coastal communities. More and more instances of crab fishermen pulling up their gear full of dead crabs prompted them to reach out to scientists for help. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists and researchers at Oregon State University have been working together since 2002 to try and find answers. While we are beginning to understand the bigger picture of the oceanographic conditions that result in hypoxia, Linus explains that we don’t have any models that predict this ‘wave’ on a finer scale. He describes the ocean as patchy, where conditions just a thousand yards away from where a fisherman may have set his or her pots may be completely different. The ultimate goal of his research is to be able to predict these conditions and inform management decisions such as seasonal and/or spatial closures. For Linus, this project r