A Week of Dolphins and Sharks

This week, as you guessed from the title, was all about dolphins and sharks. As part of our modeling efforts, I was working to consolidate some data on dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Since dolphins are unlike most of the other groups in the model--as in they are not actively targeted for catch and not frequently caught as bycatch--I used stock assessment data from NOAA's marine mammal stock reporting. For many marine mammals (and other important marine species) NOAA conducts semi-regular assessments of the health of the stock through a combination of field assessments and modeling work. These assessments provide a best estimate of the number of individuals in a geographic area, and NOAA reports data for dolphins in the estuaries and bays in the northern Gulf and for the continental shelf. To use these NOAA data in our model, I had to first parse out which geographic sampling areas fell within our model area, evaluate which proportion of the areas overlap to determine a biomass proportion factor, and then evaluate the whole spatial area of the model to turn the biomass values into biomass per square kilometer. Prior to this effort, we didn't have time series data for the dolphins in the model. This means that we didn't have information on the biomasses of the animals across time, which is slightly limiting for a model this large. While we expect that we won't have all the data for all 75 groups, the more data we can use to train the model, the better our outcomes.

Additionally, this week has been about sharks, though not the sharks in our model. It is holiday week at the lab, which means that we have multiple holiday parties and other festivities occurring. As part of these festivities, we have had scavenger hunts all week to find two lab mascots, Seymour shark and Caylor crab, which are small felted animals hidden at the two lab campuses. Every day, one of our wonderful staff members hid the animals and sent a scavenger hunt clue, and it was our task to find the mascot and snag a selfie. Here's one today of me with Seymour. One of the days, Seymour was in my office building but I couldn't for the life of me find him. These small events within the office and with the lab faculty, staff, and students really creates a welcoming culture and I cannot wait for our holiday party after work tomorrow.

Who knows what next week will bring. The semester is officially over (graduation was today) and next week is our last week of work before we have two weeks off for winter break. Tune in though, because I'm sure that something wild or fishy will pop up.

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