An Observer At Sea

Lilly Niccum’s ’21 only experience on water before last year was in recreational lake boats—then she took a job as a fisheries observer which required her to live on huge boats in Alaskan waters, gathering data on their massive, net-drawn catches so fish populations can be determined and quotas set.

“I always wanted to conduct research and be out in nature doing something that made a difference and allowed me to see more of God’s creation at the same time,” Niccum says. “How I was going to do it, I had no idea.”

She came to Concordia as an undergraduate from Phoenix, Arizona, to study biology. She worked closely with marine biology professor Sean Bignami, serving as a teacher’s assistant, an intern in a summer research institute, and conducting field research in which she helped tag and track clams in local waters to see how far they traveled. (Answer: a couple of feet per day).

After graduating, Niccum spent a year looking for jobs in conservation and field work, then spotted an opening with the National Marine Fishery Service. It required living on commercial fishing boats to collect data to help the government regulate fisheries and monitor the health and sustainability of Alaskan fish populations.

“Being that far off the grid was a little scary, but I’ve traveled and been in tough situations so I figured I’d be able to do it,” she says. “It was only a year, and I figured you should be able to do anything for a year.”

Indeed, one of the reasons she had enrolled at Concordia as an undergraduate was to participate in the Around-the- World Semester ®, “Trying different things, meeting different people,” and embracing adventure, she says. So she took the Alaska job and ventured north to a situation she was warned would be difficult at times. One challenge she was told to expect was hostility from fishermen who did not want a government observer monitoring how they did business.

“I was like, ‘I’m going to get on this boat and they’re going to throw me overboard,’” Niccum says. “[But] it’s more of an inconvenience to them. The observer program has been in place for almost 40 years. They are used to having people like me on board taking data, and they know what that process looks like and how to help us.”

Niccum lived on four different boats in her time as an observer, all of them catcher- processors, meaning they catch, process, pack, and freeze the fish on the boat. Each craft was 100 to 200 feet in length with crews of 30 to 40 people, and each had a factory below deck where crews sorted fish the nets had dumped onto conveyor belts. Boat crews were quite diverse, Niccum found, with native Alaskans, Pacific Islanders, southeast Asians, Mexicans, Africans, and Americans. Nearly all were men.

“There were times I was the only girl on the boat,” she says.

She bunked in a small room, sometimes with a fellow female observer, and wore a uniform of fleece-lined sweatpants, long underwear, fleece hoodies, wool socks, rubber boots and a thick, waterproof, orange rubber outer layer which everybody on board wore constantly because “it keeps you from getting covered in water, fish guts, and slime,” she says.

Half her twelve-hour shift was spent in an office entering data, and the other half was spent on deck or in the factory counting fish and watching the massive nets—which can hold up to 200 tons of wildlife—roll in with their catch. The sheer size of the operation initially overwhelmed her.

“I didn’t know it would be on that scale,” she says. “All day they had fish running on the belt and nets in the water. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe the boat pulled up that many fish a day and there were dozens out there like it doing the same thing.”

She also saw exotic creatures that never make it to market.

“They do bring up some weird stuff,” Niccum says. “I’ve seen some freaky fish—all sorts of invertebrates, starfish, crabs. I saw a Dumbo octopus once with the ear flaps. When it came up in the net I had no idea what it was. It didn’t look like anything I had seen before. I was texting my parents pictures of different fish every day, and different ways the ocean looks.”

Niccum’s days aboard fishing vessels were spent “basically counting fish” by collecting a few basketfuls of samples for every few tons, and counting and weighing each species so the government could get an idea of the composition of the catch.

“They keep track of the overall stock and populations and use that to help set quotas for the following seasons,” she says. “I liked the work itself. It was interesting once you get the hang of it.”

Her own senior thesis had been about how noise pollution affects the behavior of local fish. (Her conclusion: Noise pollution caused fish to be more agitated and swim into the glass, while the control group was usually calm and content in their tanks.) On the fishing boats, the rumbling sound of machines was ever-present—especially the cranes hauling the nets up, even in the middle of the night.

Niccum chronicled her experiences in regular emails to friends and family members, sent during the few hours a day internet service was available.

“I knew I was doing something very crazy that nobody I know has done before, so I wanted to keep people in the loop, let them know I was okay and show them some of the things I was seeing,” she says.

Sending the missives felt like a point of meaningful contact.

“You’re very alone out there,” Niccum says. “Being a person of faith was difficult because there is no faith community or church community up there. You’re on your own to even squeeze in a devotional. A lot of people there are anti-religious.”

When Dr. Bignami heard that Niccum was taking a job as a fisheries observer, “I thought it was awesome,” he says. “I told her, ‘This is going to be a serious experience, but if anyone can do it, you can.’ I was totally confident she could handle it.”

He had seen her conduct field research which “is all about problem-solving, adjusting to conditions, finding alternatives to accomplish what you’re trying to do and working as a team,” Bignami says. “I think those skills probably helped prepare her to go into this environment where she would be dealing with anything you can imagine: working long hours while you’re sick, dealing with bad attitudes, the weather, seasickness. It’s great to see the students graduating, going off and doing it.”

Niccum only became seasick a handful of times during larger- than-usual storms.

“You can always feel the boat moving, but during a storm you can’t walk down a hallway without falling over,” she says.

Nevertheless, crews never stop working. Boats returned to shore every couple of weeks to offload product before returning to sea, and sometimes Niccum would run to Safeway for snacks, just about the only thing to do in the small town near where they docked.

The downsides were plentiful: “It smells bad, and you’re with all these dudes all day long,” she says. “I never want to eat fish again. I didn’t really like fish before I had this job. I think fish— the animal—is super cool; I've never liked fish—the food.”

But the beauty of the open sea was awesome.

“You’re inside most of the time, which surprised me,” she recalls. “Sometimes you go out to the deck because you need a little break to look at the sky a while, get some fresh air, see the sun. ... Every time I see the ocean I think, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this. It’s so beautiful. I can’t take enough pictures or stare enough at it.’ The first thought is, ‘Thank you, God, for creating this. Thank you for giving me life.’”

One of her favorite things was to watch pods of wild orcas following the boat to feed off the discards.

Niccum credits professors like Bignami for “playing a large role in getting me to where I am today. Dr. Bignami has been a huge advocate for me, sending me job applications, and keeping in touch.”

By the end of her first year in the fisheries, Niccum was ready to come home and get what boat crews derogatorily call “a land job.”

“For a majority of people, it’s a short-term job,” she says. “I do think it’s a necessary job, but I’d like to be more hands-on in a conservation aspect.”

She is now applying for resource conservation jobs throughout the country and considering going to graduate school to further study marine biology. She is thankful for the anchor that her Concordia friends and professors continue to provide—whatever adventure she chooses to try.

“The small environment at Concordia feels like family. They are there to support you,” she says.