My awesome job

Offerings at the Blessing of the Fleet

Do you ever wonder what I do for my job as a shellfish biologist for the Swinomish Indian Tribe and why so many tribes in Washington have biologists working for them? Because so many of my blog readers live back east, I'm assuming that you don't know the recent history of WA tribes because, until we moved here, I didn't know the history either! To understand why these tribes have staff scientists, you have to go back to the mid-1800s when white settlers first began to move into Washington in earnest (disclaimer - I'm no history buff but I have researched this information a fair amount because I need to understand the history for my job. If you see any mistakes, please correct me).

The tribes in Washington have many more rights than tribes in other states because of treaties, like the Point Elliot Treaty, that were signed in the mid-1800s. In my very basic interpretation, the language in the treaties basically says that white folks are going to come and take all the land from the Indians and stick the Indians on reservations. But the treaties also say that the Indians can continue to harvest fish and wildlife with no limits, presumably because natural resources abound and could never be overharvested (note my sarcasm). The actual language in the Point Elliot Treaty says "the right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the Territory". Well, when natural resources began to dwindle (what? humans can have an impact on natural resources!??), suddenly the white folks didn't want to share what remained with the Indians and the well-known WA "Fish Wars" began.

Canoe Journey

I will try and summarize the huge, sad, and complicated history of the Fish Wars... but I know that I'm leaving a lot out (further reading can be found here and here and in many other places if you look). When WA became a state, one of the first things legislators did was outlaw fishing in six rivers in WA; eventually they banned net fishing in all rivers but the Columbia. This effectively outlawed the primary way Indians caught fish. Salmon populations began to plummet as non-Indian fishing fleets exploded, logging dominated the land, and dams went up on all the rivers. But guess who was blamed for the decline? Not the logging operations creating sedimentation problems for fish in rivers. Not the dams preventing the salmon from reaching their spawning grounds. Not the massive offshore fishing fleets with huge nets. Nope. It had to be the Indians fishing illegally with nets in the rivers (the thought of this wrongfully placed blame makes my blood boil). In the early 1960s the Indians, following civil-rights tactics elsewhere, began to protest the law by peacefully fishing in rivers, claiming it was their treaty right. The state fought back and some of these river "fish-ins" began to turn violent (think cops using clubs and tear gas on peaceful protesters). In the early 70s the "wars" became so bad U.S. government took the state of WA to court over the treaty fishing rights issue. Judge Boldt heard the arguments and handed down a landmark victory for the tribes. He interpreted the treaty language that said "in common with" to mean that Indians had a right to fish AND that they had a right to 50% of the harvestable fish in the state! To deal another blow to the state, he also said that tribes would now be co-managers with the state in regards to fisheries management. What a victory for the Indians! The state appealed the decision all the way up to the US Supreme Court, but Boldt's decision was upheld and the state was forced to begin working with the treaty tribes as co-managers of their fisheries.

Preparing salmon for a ceremony

Fast forward to 1994 and Judge Rafeedie made a similar decision in regards to upholding Indian treaty fishing rights for shellfish (think crab, shrimp, clams, oysters, etc.). The positive impact of these incredible decisions cannot be overstated. The tribes hired scientists, technicians, and staff to help them manage their portion of the fisheries. How fisheries management works today is quite different from how it presumably worked when the tribes first sat down in meetings with the state in the late 1970s. Now, when a management decision needs to be made about a particular fishery, it isn't just one player making that decision. Instead, you may have several representatives from the state and ~5-6 tribal representatives. I'm one of those lucky individuals that works for a tribe as a shellfish biologist. The Swinomish (pronounced "Swin-NA-mish") Indian Tribe is a fantastic place to work. I love the fishermen I work with - they make me laugh and they make me work hard. I often talk to state biologists and we work well together, even collaborating on research. The Tribe also gives me latitude to take on projects that benefit the Tribe but are of interest to me and my co-workers (like our native oyster restoration project). The Swinomish people are incredibly forward-thinking when it comes to important topics like climate change and adaptation (far more so than our federal and state government) and they encourage research that may help them better protect their treaty fishing rights for decades to come. I like working for people who are liberal, driven, and strong in their culture.

So what do I do on a daily basis? First of all, even though I oversee the shellfish program, I do nothing on my own. I work with a great team of biologists at the Tribe and together we get a lot of work done - but that hard work is always combined with a lot of laughter and perhaps a tad bit of mud. I'll take you through a year of my life at Swinomish through photos. The only photo that is missing, however, is an important one. Julie at her desk. Yup. Marine biology is an awesome job, but it doesn't mean I'm outside playing all day. I spend at least half of my time in front of a computer analyzing data, generating maps and graphs, writing reports, writing grant proposals, managing staff, managing fishermen, managing, managing, managing. I love the data analysis and report writing because these are the end result of our hard work in the field. And that is the other half of my job....the field work.

My co-workers and I manage the geoduck fishery for the Tribe. This includes overseeing the safety of the commercial divers, drug testing the divers and tenders, and running the scientific aspects of the fishery. We monitor the fisheries when they occur, keep track of the quota, and laugh a lot at the goofy guys we work with.

JP and Joe prepare Shaun's gear before he heads in the water

We also go out once or twice a year in the spring with the crabbers (Matt and Shawn here) to monitor the shell condition of the crabs. The fishery is managed such that we try to avoid fishing on the crabs when they have just molted - so we were out on this day squeezing crabs to figure out when to open the fishery. I promise it is more quantitative than a "squeeze". 

We also conduct surveys of wild clam populations in the intertidal zone because many tribal members love to dig clams either for use as crab bait or for food. I developed a crush on clams when I worked in Glacier Bay, Alaska and I've been stuck in bivalve land ever since! Our research in Alaska involved suction sampling quadrats of clams underwater so we could measure clam abundance and biomass. Many of the same clam species exist in WA, like the lovely butter clam I'm holding in the photo below. While I still dive for research, it doesn't involve suction-sampling clams. Now I just dig clams intertidally!

Tiffany, Courtney, and Sarah measuring Olys

Olympia oysters are the most gorgeous oyster in the world! My co-workers and I were just recently awarded a federal grant to expand our native oyster restoration project on the Reservation's tidelands. In the process of bringing more Olys (as we affectionately call them) to the Reservation, we are also planning on setting up some experiments to quantify what ecological changes may occur in the pocket estuaries as a result of bringing a native species back.

My co-worker Courtney (Tiffany is the one in this photo) designed and ran a juvenile clam recruitment study so that we could learn more about the future generations of clam populations on commercially-important beaches. Unfortunately, we can't seem to find the recruits. Where the heck are they? We will be fine-tuning our methods again this upcoming summer. This is what science is about.... learning from research that doesn't always work!

In WA, the larger low tides occur at night in the late fall and winter. That means we end up working at night too!

Julie and Max pre-dive in the San Juan Islands

Courtney and I also conduct geoduck surveys with biologists from other tribes. We basically dive over big sandy areas and systematically count dimples like this one in the photograph. That is a huge geoduck siphon (the siphon is the neck of the clam).

If you have ever wondered what dreadlocks look like on a dive, Courtney is demonstrating!

The first geoduck Courtney ever dug up (for a geoduck biomass study). She managed to find a real beauty! The first time I ever dug up a geoduck I pulled out the world's ugliest clam ever. Brown shell, mottled siphon, warty. Ugly. And this is what Courtney gets on her first duck pull? Jealous!

We actually do even more than this! But I think this should give you a good idea of how much hard work we get accomplished for the Swinomish Tribe in the midst of having a great time. I am honored to work for them.

A complete set of 2014 work photos can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/2014WorkPhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ6t75Kj_MbDag

I hope you learned something new! Did anyone even read this??