News Archives

Juvenile salmon in a basket. NOAA Fisheries photo.

Juvenile salmon experienced a mix of favorable and challenging ocean conditions off the West Coast in 2025, according to an annual analysis by NOAA Fisheries and Oregon State University researchers.


A Recipe for Connection

(December 4, 2025)

David L.G. Noakes, late professor at Oregon State University. (Oregon Stater magazine)


A floating solar farm operates at the Villings Reservoir in Sao Paulo.  (AP Photo/ Andre Penner)

Floating solar could help meet clean-energy goals, but researchers found ecological trade-offs vary widely, showing why each reservoir may need its own environmental review.


A young humpback whale stranded on the Oregon Coast north of Yachats on Nov.15, 2025. photo: West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network

Jim Rice is the Stranding Program Manager with the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. KLCC’s Rachael McDonald asked him to describe what happened.


Image of a gray whale captured via drone off the coast of Oregon. Photo courtesy the Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory.

Scientists “are finding applications for drones in virtually every aspect of marine mammal research,” says Joshua Stewart, an ecologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute.


In the study predators, such as this badger, responded to changes in plant cover and rodent (prey) activity more than cattle presence.  Credit; Oregon State University

The sagebrush ecosystem — a vast, dry landscape that supports hundreds of wildlife species and livelihoods in the West — is shrinking and changing. Livestock grazing is the dominant land-use across much of this ecosystem.


Big Fish Lab working with a shark on a boat

The director of the lab, Dr. Taylor Chapple, said they are tracking the movements and physiology of large predators in our oceans. What they want to find out is why these sharks are in the bay.


Aspen treen in Yellowstone National Park.  (Courtesy Luke Painter, Oregon State University)

Like the elk before them, bison like to gobble aspen saplings. The lumbering bison also sometimes knock over aspen trees, Luke Painter, an ecologist at Oregon State University, told Cowboy State Daily.


Susanne Brander in Vancouver for fisheries meeting 2024

Many countries say redesign, recycling and reuse can solve the problem, while others, and some major companies, say that’s not enough or do not want to see plastic production cuts. Video features OSU’s Susanne Brander.


Blue Shark

"It [Jaws] villainized sharks and people became absolutely terrified of any species that was in the ocean," James Sulikowski, director of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station at Oregon State University, told ABC News.


A species of mosquito, Culiseta inornata, lie displayed in the Oregon State Arthropod Collection, at OSU in Corvallis, OR on April 14, 2025. Photo: Carter Pardue

An ichthyology collection — pertaining to the study of fish — has a place on the Corvallis campus. Specimens and an online database are available for research on various species found and contributed by faculty members and students. 


A blue whale surfaces in New Zealand's South Taranaki Bight. Photo credit: Dawn Barlow.

Kate Stafford, an oceanographer and a professor at the Marine Mammal Institute at OSU, was one of those researchers.“We came across what I would call Humpback Palooza,” Stafford said. “Just dozens of humpback whales, which was crazy.”


Jim Rivers headshot

 

Jim Rivers, an associate professor of wildlife ecology, has been awarded the prestigious Bullard Fellowship from Harvard University to further his groundbreaking research on native pollinators in working forest landscapes. 


OSU Shark License Plate

Vouchers are now on sale for a new specialty Oregon license plate that researchers hope will inspire people to think differently about the sharks living just off the Oregon Coast.


pile of pink shrimp. Image credit: manfredrichter via Pixabay

A study is pointing to the issue of microplastics contamination in the food chain. Specifically, according to a study recently published in Frontiers in Toxicology, microplastics are widely present in commonly eaten Oregon seafood.


microplastics on a finger

A major sticking point in negotiations remains the regulation of plastic chemicals, many of which impact our hormones and ability to reproduce.


Shark swimming underwater. Photo: Vlad Siryk

“It’s more often than not a shark is going to see you than you are going to see the shark. I’m sure this fisherman has had a shark around them before,” said Oregon State University professor Taylor Chapple.


Mee-ya Monneedy

Mee-ya Monneedy was announced as a Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship Finalist.


microplastics on a finger
“We know that micro- and nano-plastics as well as microfibers, which are shed from synthetic clothes, can make their way to remote corners of the world, as well as to be ingested by and transported within the bodies of living organisms, including us,

Researchers from Oregon State University, Arizona State University, and Rhode Island's Atlantic Shark Institute caught 10 pregnant porbeagle sharks and tagged them to tack their habitat (Courtesy Dr. James Sulikowski, OSU)

A team of scientists from Arizona, Oregon and Rhode Island had been tracking a pregnant, porbeagle shark for hundreds of miles from New England to Bermuda when it was killed.

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Salmon Shark

“Historically they were called salmon sharks because they were seen at the river mouths up in Alaska eating salmon," Alexandra McInturf, a researcher with Oregon State University, said.


Broadnose Sevengill Shark

Oregon State University researchers have made the first scientific confirmation in Puget Sound of two distinct shark species, one of them critically endangered.


This graphic shows the path of a basking shark from the time it was tagged, then struck by a vessel and then where it was when the tag released. Image courtesy Big Fish Lab, Oregon State University.

Hours after tagging an endangered basking shark off the coast of Ireland in April, researchers captured what they believe is the first ever video of a shark or any large marine animal being struck by a boat.


Lisa Ballance

President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Lisa T. Ballance to serve as a key leader in his administration. Lisa T. Ballance is the nominee to be Chair and Member of the Marine Mammal Commission.


Big Fish Lab working with a shark on a boat

A team made up of researchers from Oregon State, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and NOAA are scanning the waters of South Puget Sound trying to uncover the mysteries of these newly discovered species in our waters.


Two PCFG gray whales.

Gray whales that spend their summers feeding in the shallow waters off the Pacific Northwest coast have undergone a significant decline in body length since around the year 2000, a new Oregon State University study found.


Roberto Ponce Velez

Roberto Ponce Velez, an OSU junior in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences has been named a 2024 Udall Scholar in the Environment category.


Marbled murrelet, photo by Brett Lovelace

Researchers developed a machine learning algorithm known as a convolutional neural network to mine the recordings for murrelet calls.


Hatfield Marine Science Day

Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport will host its annual science fair and open house from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 13.


Researcher Sara Hutton, a doctoral graduate of OSU, extracts RNA for qPCR to test gene expression of genes effected by pyrethroid exposure in the different generations of inland silverside fish. (Credit: Sara Hutton / Oregon State University)

Although pesticides can rid your home of cockroaches or farm fields of unwanted insects, they also can harm fish and potentially even people, according to a new study from Oregon State University.


This undated photo provided by the Hawaii Wildlife Fund shows microplastics at the beach at Kamilo Point in Naalehu, Hawaii. (Megan Lamson, Hawaii Wildlife Fund via AP)

American drinking water has some of the highest concentrations of microscopic plastic waste of anywhere in the world, a group of environmental experts told the Senate.


Collecting juvenile Pacific cod. Image courtesy of Ben Laurel, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

Marine heat waves appear to trigger earlier reproduction, high mortality in early life stages and fewer surviving juvenile Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska, a new study from Oregon State University shows.


Oceanic Cacophony

(December 21, 2023)

The ocean is a pretty loud place, and anthropogenic noise is adding another layer to the soundscape.