Nature Conservancy Pilot Dive Survey and Seaweed Collection Project
POORT received a grant from the Nature Conservancy to conduct video surveys and sample seaweeds in the Redfish Rocks area. Contract biologists from Tekna Diving Services and Golden Marine Consulting will dive in shallow water locations in late August and collect seaweeds for taxonomic identification by Dr. Gayle Hansen at Oregon State University. Observations of habitat by biologists will be used to help identify and groundtruth different habitat sites for comparison with habitats identified from the multi-beam survey (See Multi-beam Survey blurb above). Very little taxonomic identification of subtidal seaweeds has been done in Oregon. The information will be used to help characterize nearshore habitats and species diversity in the Redfish Rocks area.