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A shellfish cannery in Nahcotta, WA.
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Oyster hummocks emerging as the tide goes out.
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The tide is out exposing a wide mudflat with Long Island in the distance.
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A Spartina meadow on the east side of Long Island.
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Brice moving oysters to form a hummock for a salmon study of habitat preference.
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A couple of buckets of oyster drills collected from a bed in a single tide.
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Eric thinks about graduate school.
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Copper enclosures used to keep drills in (and out) to study feeding rate, preference, and impact on seed.
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Almost every year, when the wind is right, velella wash up on the beach in massive numbers.
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These are bags of oyster shell, used to catch a natural set of oyster larvae, or set in a hatchery, and put out in the bay to grow.
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As part of a growth and survival experiment, drills were tagged. This one has grown enough to get another tag!
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An adult oyster covered with Asian drill eggs, and a small oly that has been drilled.
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Many experiments require separating and cleaning oysters.
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Drills were provided with oysters of different sizes to determine feeding rate and preference.
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To determine growth and survival for a population matrix, we spent many hours around hummocks collecting drills.
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The shell of one of our tagged drills has been put to good use after the drill expired.
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Long Island in the distance with the hummocks of Middle Island Sands in the foreground
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A female Orthione, a parasite of mudshrimp.
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One of the sets of poles put out around the bay to measure secondary productivity via oyster growth.
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An oyster dredge docked in the harbor at Port of Peninsula, Willapa Bay, WA.
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Oyster dredges are a used for hauling and harvesting the oysters.
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Longlines have been used to grow oysters on ground that in unsuitable for ground culture.
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Jennifer herds the oysters across the tide flat.
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Seastars are a problem for oyster aquaculture, but are relatively rare in Willapa Bay.
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Alan and Teddy take a plankton sample to look for oyster larvae in the water.
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A small oyster hummock. Hummocks are formed by oysters setting on older oysters and growing.
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The research vessel, Vindaloo.
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The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife maintains a Shellfish Lab in Nahcotta, WA. Besides its fulltime staff, many researchers use this as their base of operation.
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