CoastWatch Webinars Now Available on YouTube

CoastWatch training on rocky shore habitats.\Photo by Daniel Anderson.

With the onset of pandemic restrictions on travel and meetings, CoastWatch pivoted rapidly toward working online to maintain volunteer training and public education and to keep the mile adopter community connected.  It required some hasty re-orientation for a program that has always relied on community events and beachwalks, but Volunteer Coordinator Jesse Jones quickly mastered the art of the webinar, and by April a series of virtual sessions was underway.

CoastWatch webinars have covered basic volunteer training, and a variety of special topics such as marine debris, rocky shore habitats, and the new beachgrass survey.  These webinars have been very well received, and make presentations available to CoastWatchers, Oregon Shores members, and other interested people wherever they may be, rather than limiting the audience to those in a particular geographic area.  CoastWatch will continue to operate in the online realm, even when it becomes possible to resume a full schedule of field activities.

And now, CoastWatch webinars are available on YouTube, so they can be viewed at any time.  Live webinars still have special value, because it is possible to ask questions, but those who miss the event at its original time, or want to revisit it, will have access to a webinar archive on the CoastWatch YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmfpsfd5mRUoKbnpIZ6COZQ/videos.

For those new to YouTube, it’s a great resource for webinars, films and videos, many specifically produced for Oregon – and many of our conservation partners also participate with their own channels. Note that you’ll see more videos on each channel if you click the “videos” tab. Sometimes the “home” tab only shows a couple.

You don’t need to have a YouTube account, but consider becoming a subscriber. It’s free to do so and provides CoastWatch with perks once we get to 100 subscribers. Perks would include a shorter link than the one above, with our own name.

Videos available right now are as follows, with more to be uploaded as the summer continues:

• Rocky Habitat Series: On the Rocks! Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge with Roy Lowe shows and tells through Roy’s incredible wildlife photography the life of seabirds and mammals on these important offshore habitats.

• Rocky Habitat Series: How to Contribute to Sea Star Research on the Oregon Coast provides information and a brief training about sea star observation logs – a simple way to document sea stars all year long outside of Oregon’s five permanent sites. Melissa Miner from MARINe (Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network) leads the presentation.

• Marine Debris Series: Marine Debris Surveys with NOAA’s Andrew Mason takes attendees through NOAA’s role in the context of marine debris surveys globally and outlines how CoastWatch volunteers engage with surveys on their coast mile. Miles available for marine debris surveying!  

• Marine Debris Series: Megan Ponder Talks about The Story of Plastic is Megan’s story as producer behind the scenes of this incredible film of what happened to people and communities when China implemented the National Sword import ban on plastics.  

• Meet Staff and Volunteers of 4 Oregon Marine Reserves includes a panel of staff and volunteers from Falcon Cove, Cape Perpetua, Cascade Head and Otter Rock giving brief presentations on their local marine reserve and then taking questions from attendees.  

• Rocky Habitat Series: Tidepool Ecology with Fawn Custer features a fantastic new slideshow, filled to the brim with scientific information, from CoastWatch’s citizen science trainer (and former volunteer coordinator), outlining in often humorous detail the many forms of life found in our rocky habitats.  

• Oregon King Tides Project with Meg Reed features the Oregon Coastal Management Programs coastal shores specialist, CoastWatch’s key partner in organizing this citizen science project.  Reed offers photos and commentary from last season’s biggest tides of the year, and includes discussion about the winter 2020-2021 project, focusing on high-tide series November 15-17, 2020, December 13-15, 2020, and January 11-13, 2021. Pick your spots and get your cameras ready and remember, always Safety First.  

• Hunting Hybrid Beachgrass on the Oregon Coast introduces a new citizen science opportunity for CoastWatch volunteers and the general public. Rebecca Straley Mostow, a PhD candidate at Oregon State University, describes the discovery of a new hybrid, the role of beachgrasses in shaping the Oregon coast we know, and the citizen science project which is helping her team map the new invasive. 

• Marine Debris Series: Beach Trash from An Oregon Beach Ranger’s View with Ryan Parker is a highly informative presentation sans photos including marine debris statistics and facts in Oregon and around the globe. 

Upcoming uploads to YouTube include Rocky Habitat Series: Rocky Habitat Management Strategy Update Q & A Part I and Part II; Marine Debris Series: Artist Elizabeth Roberts (who brings the issue front and center with her own photos of plastic debris on beaches in Alaska, southern Oregon, Maine and Norway, and reveals how her art became the result of these voyages and cleanups); a CoastWatch basic volunteer training; a marine debris survey training, and more.