149TH YEAR, NO. 121
WEEKEND EDITION // SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2022
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A recent study used eDNA to measure populations of Pacifi c hake, or whiting.
Bumble Art Studio
GENETIC TRACES
PAINT A PICTURE
FOR FISHERIES
Bumble Art Studio is one of two providers
interested in partnering with the city on child care.
Child
care
options
emerge
Two providers step forward
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
With Sprouts Learning Center expected to
close by summer, two preschool providers have
approached the city with proposals to partner on
child care.
The city announced plans to close Sprouts —
one of the larger child care facilities in Clatsop
County — in February after reaching a critical
staffi ng shortage and operating at an unsustain-
able loss.
The city made an attempt to make opera-
tions more sustainable by requesting proposals
from parties interested in forming a public-pri-
vate partnership. But after no luck, city coun-
cilors unanimously supported transitioning out
of providing the service by the end of the fi scal
year in June .
Sprouts Learning Center provides care for 21
children up to 5 years old.
Since announcing the decision to close,
Bumble Art Studio and Astoria Head Start have
approached the city with proposals. City c oun-
cilors will review the details during a work ses-
sion next Friday and decide whether to move
forward with one.
Jonah Dart-McLean, the city’s parks direc-
tor, said that after the city announced plans to
close Sprouts , staff redoubled eff orts to fi nd a
potential partner.
“(We) reached out to some of our commu-
nity partners, like the members of the child care
advisory group that I’m part of, to reempha-
size that there was this interest in trying to fi nd
a provider that may be interested in using the
space,” he said.
Looking to expand
Amy Atkinson, the co-owner of Bumble Art
Studio, said she and her business partner looked
over the city’s request for public-private part-
nerships last fall, but determined it wasn’t the
Dropping a bucket into the ocean
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
KMUN
s fi sh swim around in the ocean,
they leave pieces of themselves
behind.
“At sort of the least technical level: It’s
slime. It’s skin. It’s poop,” said Andrew
“Ole” Shelton, a researcher with the
Northwest Fisheries Science Center in
Seattle. “It’s, you know, all the things you
don’t really want to think about being in
the water.”
These fragments of genetic material
— environmental DNA, or eDNA — col-
lected in bucketfuls of ocean water and
analyzed in a lab, cast a sort of shadow
about what was in the area hours before.
It’s enough to give researchers information
about the abundance and distribution of a
species without needing the fi sh to actually
be present at the time a sample is collected.
Shelton is the lead author of a recent
study by a team that hopes to use eDNA
on a large scale for fi sheries management
and conservation work.
They covered a large area off the West
Coast, sampling at various points, and
used eDNA to measure populations of
Pacifi c hake, or whiting.
Pacifi c hake is a major commercial
fi shery, one of the West Coast’s largest in
terms of pounds landed and money gen-
erated. Population and distribution assess-
ments are key when it comes to running
and working in the fi shery.
Until the research done by Shelton and
his team, eDNA had mostly been used on
a smaller scale — to assess the presence of
certain species in lakes, rivers and coastal
waters, for instance.
Last year, scientists used eDNA to show
a beluga whale that made an appearance in
Puget Sound was likely from a population
of beluga whales in Arctic waters.
Traditional fi shery survey methods use
trawl nets or sonar. Researchers catch or
see what they can at a particular time in a
particular place. For eDNA, the fi sh could
A
have been there and gone several hours
ago.
The water samples collected can
be stored and studied again and again.
Researchers can even look for the pres-
ence of diff erent species using the same
water samples.
The archive of water samples needs to
grow and data collected must accumulate
over time before eDNA surveys of spe-
cies like hake will be as useful to fi shery
managers as the more traditional surveys.
Hake trawl surveys have a long time series
attached to them with information that
can be compared over years of surveying.
Environmental DNA does not have this
history — not yet.
There are also limits to what eDNA
can reveal. It can’t tell researchers about
the age, sex or size of the individual fi sh.
But after the success at surveying for
hake, Shelton sees opportunities to put the
eDNA approach to work.
It can be a more cost-eff ective way
to sample, he noted, saving researchers
expensive ship time. At it’s most basic,
you’re dropping a bucket into the ocean
and pulling it up fi lled with water.
Collection of eDNA could also prove
especially useful for tracking the distri-
bution and populations of fi sh and marine
mammal species that are diffi cult to fi nd or
diffi cult to survey.
For example, on the West Coast, there
are rockfi sh species that were historically
overfi shed. Environmental DNA could be
a way to help fi shermen avoid them.
“That’s a big question,” Shelton said.
“How do you mitigate bycatch of these
species that you’re concerned about? And
how do you better target your fi sheries
management to deal with these species
that it’s just hard to fi gure out where they
are?”
This is a gap — a bucket, if you will —
that Shelton believes eDNA could fi ll.
This story is part of a collaboration
between The Astorian and Coast Commu-
nity Radio.
PACIFIC HAKE IS A MAJOR COMMERCIAL FISHERY,
ONE OF THE WEST COAST’S LARGEST IN TERMS
OF POUNDS LANDED AND MONEY GENERATED.
POPULATION AND DISTRIBUTION ASSESSMENTS
ARE KEY WHEN IT COMES TO RUNNING
AND WORKING IN THE FISHERY.
See Child care, Page A6
GEARHART
Bike ban on Ridge Path loses tread
City Council instead
looks to add signs
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
GEARHART — In March , the
City C ouncil voted 4 to 1 to consider
a ban on bicycles on the Ridge Path.
But on Wednesday , the coun-
cil took a step back, indicating that
rather than a ban, the city could
add warning signs and pedestrian
crossings.
“Where I personally would
choose not to ride bikes on the
Ridge Path and have not actually
myself, I understand the need for
parents to have their kids be able to
ride safely to town,” Mayor Paulina
Cockrum said. “I also understand
that there can be some safety haz-
ards for walkers if the bicycles don’t
take care in passing. I hope that we
can fi nd a solution that will balance
these key issues — perhaps without
an ordinance.”
The former Native American
trail runs between privately owned
residential properties within the
blocks between Cottage Avenue and
Neacoxie Creek, extending from
F Street on the south to 10th Street
on the north. The fi rst 11 blocks
were established by the original plat
of Gearhart Park, as laid out and
recorded by M.J. Kinney in 1890.
See Bike ban, Page A6
The Ridge Path in Gearhart.