Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy...

So now that I am living 85% of the marine biology dream, it's high time I shared a little more insight with all of you. Particularly because this blog is supposed to help aspiring marine biologists, I should give you more details about what the job actually entails.

My internship is made up of 3 parts: 49% Photo-ID, 49% Dolphin surveys and 2% Fishing surveys. By the time I got here, they had done most of the fishing, so I only got to help out on four days of fishing.

But what a four days it was.

The short story: We collect fish and measure them so we can get an idea of the composition in the bay and how well they are doing (based on size). We take more measurements and weigh the fish species that dolphins like to eat so that we can figure out the nutritional value and whether dolphins think they are yummy.

Now for the fun story:

We use a technique called purse seine netting to catch the fish. Basically the net is really big and has a heavy string at the bottom. We throw the net overboard and drive in a circle so the net goes in a circle.

The net all folded up, ready to be thrown over

The corks of the net, in a large circle

Once the net is all set out, you take the ends of the heavy rope (the "purse line") and have hydrolics pull them closed. Like tightening the purse strings... everyone get it? Now the net starts to look like a bowl (if you could see underwater). You pull and pull and pull until the purse line is as small as you can get, then you start to bring all the excess net back on board, again using the hydrolics.

We also need information about the habitat. General appearance, depth, salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and the conditions that we are sampling in (from calm and pretty to tropical storm, basically).

This is where the fish come in. To be the best fisher you can, you select the size of hole you want your net to be based on the size of fish you want to catch. Not too big that fish you want will swim through, but not too small so as to catch small fish you don't want. Generally this works really well, but you will get fat fish that get stuck in the net holes, or stupid fish that start to swim through, then want to back up and get their gills caught in the net (what we call "getting gilled"). So as the excess is getting pulled back up, you want to watch it come through in order to find any fish caught in the net (and there will be fish caught in the net).

Because you need to count every fish. Every. Single. Damn. Fish.

And you need to be fast. Because we like fish, and we don't want them to die. So the faster you get them out and get them measured, the faster they back in the water. And the faster you can move on to the next set and the faster you are finished.

So yeah... you need to be fast.

And fearless. Fish bite. And some have really pointy spines (that's the scientific terminology). Some even have sharp skin. A couple are poisonous. But they all need to be handled and counted. As an intern, I could get away with a little bit of wariness and shirking away from some of the fish, but when I grow up you have to suck it up and get 'er done.

Insider advice: only wimps use gloves. If you don't leave the boat with hands totally scraped up, you did something wrong.

We took two types of measurements because we were doing two types of projects. The first measurement was on every fish, and that was the fleshy length. That is the length from the end of the fish's nose to the end of it's skin/body (where the body turns into tail fin).

On the dolphin prey species, we took: total length (nose to very end of tail), fork length (nose to the inside of the fork), fleshy length (see above) and standard length (nose to the end of the spine). We also weighed it to the nearest 2 grams.

Once all the fish had been measured and thrown overboard (dead or hopefully alive), clean up, set the net straight and repeat.

And as bonus data, we collect samples of water to look for red tide ( some kind of algae/small organism that turns the water red. It's pretty harmless to humans unless you're allergic).

Sounds fun, hey? While it is a lot of work, it really is also a lot of fun ( if you're into that sort of thing). And I discovered that the Sarasota Bay really does have a lot of totally awesome creatures living in it. Ones that I have studied and seen dead and pickled, but here I saw them alive and kicking!

Animals like...

Sharks!

Rays!

Horseshoe crabs!

Octopus!

Burfish! (like pufferfish!)

Halfbeaks!

As well as a sea turtle or two (one was swimming in our net and a volunteer had to go out and save it).

So the moral of the story: The fishing was hard, you had to be fast, my hands look like ground beef, you smell like crap, you sweat so much and I have not had that much fun in a very, very long time.

Speak Loud.

The Intimidation Factor

There are going to be times, many, many times, in your career where you will meet people that intimidate you.

Perhaps they are a superior whose knowledge and experience seem daunting. Then your intimidation might be the result of absolute respect. I have felt this kind of fear a lot with my profs. They are brilliant, seem to know everything and their approval is the only thing that matters. Even once you discover that they are but human, your determination to impress overpowers your common sense, and every encouraging word or disciplinary act moulds ever move you make.

Then again, perhaps it is some up and coming scientist, wide eyed and naive, but who you know is much smarter than yourself. You fear that the future of your science won't be written by you, but rather them. You are intimiated by their potential to overthrow you, and you will be forced to live in a cardboard box and eat ramen noodles for the rest of your life. Fear not! Except for the few arrogant ones that no one likes and therefore will get turned away from jobs more often than not, those younger/ less experienced than you will look up to you and seek your advice simply to not trouble the waters and occasionally to be liked (see paragraph above). So don't fear them, encourage them and help them become better scientists. Most will know their place, and remember: science is a team effort.

The final category, and possibly the most terrifying of all, are your collegues. Those that are also recent graduates, looking for the same funding and the same job/academic opportunities. These are your true enemies, the one's you keep closer than your friends. You are in your own arms race, constantly keeping up the Joneses.

Or are you?

As I have recently discovered, everyone has the one-up on each other in some way or another. While a collegue might have more experience in one field of interest, you might have more experience in another. They wrote a longer thesis, but you wrote a more concise one. They went away for school to a expensive university, but you understand the value of money, don't expect your supervisor to come up with all the funding, and are ready to spend gruelling hours writing grant proposals (see last post). When you sum it all up, life, work and school experience, 95% of us are on equal footing.

I am living this out right now. Some of the other interns on paper seemed super intimidating. But as I get to know them, I find that I have experiences they don't, and even though they've had more experience in marine biology, they aren't entirely sure what they want to do in the field. I think depriving myself of it for so long forced me to really think it through and consider all the options ahead of time, which might in the end make me a better candidate for graduate school or jobs in the future.

So refuse to be intimidated! Except by your superiors, they are actually frightening. But as for the others, we're all just trying to learn new things and expose the world to new knowledge. Science can't happen from one person alone, so don't waste time being intimidated that you could be using to fuse two (or three) brilliant minds together to make the future of our planet a better one.

Speak Loud.

Must be Funny in a Rich Man's World

Hey Team!

So to all my followers eagerly anticipating my next post, I apologize for the wait. August was not a very biology-y month for me, so other than preparing for Florida (where I am sitting right now), there wasn't much for me to say. But with my internship starting in a few days (I should probably figure out how I'm going to eat...) the posts should be almost endless!

But that isn't the subject of this post. The subject, if you didn't guess from the most excellent clue in the title, is money. Specifically, how the hell am I supposed to get some.

This is another thing I was I was told back in high school about becoming a scientist. Getting your second degree is nothing like getting your first. Your bachelors is basically handed to you, all you need to do is: apply to a university, get accepted, work your ass off, and POOF! degree!

Masters: Work your ass off in your bachelors, write an Honours thesis, gain work experience, apply for grants/scholarships, get grants/scholarships, apply to supervisor, get accepted by supervisor, apply to university, get accepted to university, work your ass off, write thesis, and POOF! degree.

Sounds like a blast and a half, no?

This is not me complaining, I am more than excited to do all of it. It's just a very intimidating process. The most intimidating part though is the grant application process.

See, research costs a lot. It costs even more then you are working with giant animals that live under water where no one can see them. And most profs, even the ones who work with marine mammals, don't have thousands of dollars to fund yet another project, so they insist that students bring their own money into the mix. Especially if they want food and shelter for the next two years.

So that's where I stand. I am in the race of my life competing with other (probably more) qualified students for money to help jump start our futures and careers. And as much as I impressed my family with my grades and accomplishments, in the research arena I am a so-so candidate, and there are many more impressive people worthy of money (more on them later...).

Once I am totally settled in, I'll have to start worrying about all that. It's going to be a lot of applications, and a lot of rejections. I'm glad I went through I lot of that with my job search, I ordered a pretty think skin for that.

Enough complaining Gaby! The point of this was to help other marine biologists, not to be a whiny baby!!

So here is where to look for money to help fund research. Disclaimer: My grad student friends had to help me with this, because I had no idea where to go.

-- NSERC - one of the hardest grants to get, but therefore the most prestigious. Only the best grades, most work experience and most publications get these grants. So seriously (seriously) work hard, and make yourself into the best applicant for this grant

-- University grad scholarships - most universities have grants specifically for their grad students, so look into these. But remember, they are open to EVERY grad student in the school, so competition is high.

-- Society scholarships - If you belong to a biology-related society (which you should.... a few even), they might have research scholarships for members and even specifically students. The applicant pool is much smaller for these, so you have a better chance of getting one.

--Online resources - there are websites (like www.studentawards.com) that help you by listing all the scholarships you might be eligible for. Although the name of the scholarship can be important at times (see NSERC), it's the money in your hands that is the finish line. So apply to even the most obscure scholarships, because you're not going to care who's memorial scholarship it is when you have a couple grand to buy groceries with.

I'll be starting my own money making process soon. Hopefully I get something from someone so that I can make my Master's student dream into a reality.

Speak Loud!