Mariska Obedzinski (pronounced Marishka Obuhzinski) is a California Sea Grant Extension Specialist based in a Sea Grant office in Windsor, California. She and a team of biologists, AmeriCorps members, and interns conduct monitoring and research to support salmon and steelhead recovery in coastal California. Mariska is fascinated with stream ecology and is driven to get science off the shelf and into the hands of those working to protect and restore our coastal environment. She has coordinated the Russian River Salmon and Steelhead Monitoring Program for over 15 years and prior to that worked on Atlantic salmon recovery efforts in Maine.
Expertise
- Salmonid ecology
- Conservation biology
- PIT tag technology
Research
Mariska and her team's research and monitoring is focused on identifying bottlenecks to salmonid recovery and evaluation of efforts to address those bottlenecks. Recently, much of their work has focused on understanding the effects of low streamflow on juvenile salmonids rearing in coastal streams. They attempt to link academia with salmon recovery efforts through partnerships with graduate students, resource management agencies, and non-profit organizations.
Extension and Outreach
Mariska and her team strive to make the data they are collecting available to those involved with salmonid recovery as well as the general public. They serve on technical committees, provide presentations, develop web-based mapping tools, host social media sites, and communicate with hundreds of streamside landowners. With the goal of helping to train the next generation of conservation scientists, they offer an internship program and host AmeriCorps members, providing them hands-on training with field data collection.
Featured Outreach Products
- Social Media: Follow the Russian River Salmon and Steelhead Monitoring Program on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
- Adult Fish ID Guide
Publications
Obedzinski, M., S.N. Pierce, G.E. Horton, and M.J. Deitch. 2018. Effects of flow-related variables on oversummer survival of juvenile coho salmon in intermittent streams. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 147:588-605.
Deitch, M. J., Van Docto, M., Obedzinski, M., Nossaman, S., and Bartshire, A. 2018. Impact of multi-annual drought on streamflow in coastal California salmonid streams. Hydrological Sciences Journal 63(8): 1219-1235.
