The 2026 Fisheries interns have been kept busy with a mix of field and lab experiences. Both internal Fisheries Management staff and external scientists from NOAA, the University of Chicago, the Seattle Aquarium, and WDFW have taught the interns about their work. They have gotten to go on marine mammal surveys, spend a couple nights on Tatoosh island, capture green crabs, and much more. Below, Jessiah, Matthew, and Nani share some of their favorite parts of the experiences they have gotten so far this summer.

Jessiah Butterfield

Over the course of this internship I found myself in the role of data entry quite often. I worked with a team of fellow interns, and we were introduced to many people inside the fisheries department. The main responsibility that I handled was data entry, I did this when working with the Green Crab Team, and for the olive snail survey we did. These experiences allowed me to gain valuable experience, I learned how to do data entry in the field. These skills will help me later on in my career, it opened my eyes to career opportunities with similar responsibilities. My absolute favorite part of the internship was the olive snail survey. I found observing the aggregations of olive snails to be very intriguing, there was huge variation between plots, some may have hundreds of specimens while others have zero. 

Matthew Goolsby

Hi, I went to Tatoosh island a couple weeks ago and met some cool researchers from the University of Chicago Timothy Wootton and Cathy Pfister. They were practically experts on everything relating to Tatoosh, from the history to all the flora and fauna. I spent 3 days and 2 nights on Tatoosh and let me tell you it was magical, well sorta. To get to the island we had to load everything up on the research boat and then tow a dingy behind us to ferry us and all of our gear to the island. Once we got everyone to shore we had to carry all our gear up the hill side which was a series of poorly designed staircases with super thick brush. After getting all the gear to the bunk houses we started exploring the island, but it was high tide so it was cut short. Later, we went and caught a boat load of fish which was pretty awesome. (Next day) We woke up to the birds chirping at about 6am in the morning and checked out the island. After all of that Jasper and I went snorkeling which was when a sea lion swam up right next to us. Long story short Tatoosh island was pretty fun and a great learning opportunity. 

Nani Parker

Hi, Nani again back for round two of the blog. There has been a lot that has happened so far of this internship at Fisheries. Matt and I went camping at this island called Tatoosh. On the Island we helped collect water samples with Timothy Wootton and Cathy Pfister. We stayed there for 3 days. For those 3 days we walked so much and had to wake up so early you would hear the birds talking up a storm! It was crazy. We checked out different types of kelp and also looked around the island looking for sea life like sea stars in tide pools. We saw a sunflower starfish! There was one really friendly sea lion that we met two times. We called the sea lion Dennis the Menace. Then the next week something bad happened. I had to go on vacation to Alaska! So, I missed out on so much cool and fun stuff to do with green crab! The next week we helped remove vegetation on the shore of Ozette Lake. That project helps sockeye salmon have a better spot to spawn. In short this internship is so fun! It gives wonderful work experience out in the field and is a great learning opportunity.

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