Oregon Field Guide

Eleven years ago, a rare, dead, 70-foot-long blue whale washed up on a beach in southern Oregon. It was malnourished and likely hit by a ship. Now, the skeleton of that whale is being installed at @oregonstate ’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. How do you turn a giant whale into a giant whale skeleton? It's not simple or quick. It started with submerging the body in Yaquina Bay for three years, where marine invertebrates and seawater cleaned the bones. Then the bones were shipped to Canada, where a team from @dinosaurvalleystudios spent 3 years preserving and articulating them. Now they're back in Newport, where a team is installing them over the weekend. Oregon State University is planning to hold a celebration to mark the completion of the blue whale's journey later this year. ✂️ by Cameron Nielsen/OPB ✏️ by Jes Burns/OPB 🎵 Courtesy of Audio Network

This week marks 40 years since the tragic loss of nine lives in what is still Mount Hood’s greatest climbing disaster. The team at "Oregon Field Guide" shares this tribute. You can learn more about climbing Oregon’s highest peak at the link in the bio. 🖊️✂️: Jule Gilfillan/OPB 📹: KGW Nick Fisher/OPB

From a small Oregon town to the world stage—meet the students building underwater robots and winning big. Guided by a teacher and a retired Boeing engineer, these young engineers in Warrenton are proving that big dreams don't need a big city. 🤖🌊 To watch the full video about their underwater adventure in robotics, click the link in bio. This year’s regional MATE ROV competition takes place in Newport on May 9. @materovcompetition 📹 by Rob Sams & Noah Thomas /OPB ✂️ by Evan Rodriguez & Noah Thomas/OPB 🎵 Courtesy of Audio Network #RoboticEducation #Oregon #MATEROV #Robotics #MarineTech #engineering #science #highschool #oregonfieldguide

Let’s go behind the scenes with the crew of OPB’s “All Science. No Fiction” to see how an episode gets made. In this episode, host Jes Burns takes you to Portland State University, where scientists are testing a new ground treatment that could help prevent soil liquefaction during a major earthquake. And yes — there’s a high school drumline and a dog pool full of sand. Click the link in our bio to watch the full video. 🖊️ by Sarah Nairalez/OPB ✂️ by Diana Ecker 🎵 Courtesy of Audio Network #AllScienceNoFiction #OPBBehindtheScenes #bts #btsopb #behindthescenes #sneakpeek

Did you know Mount Rainier was named after a man who had never seen the mountain? Before that, and still to this day, the Indigenous communities in the area have many names for it, like Tahoma and Ta Ko Ba. Today, there are very few Indigenous visitors on the mountain, but we are grateful to be filming a few of them as they attempt to make it to camp Muir this June. In preparation, producer Jessie Sears and cinematographer Brandon Swanson scouted the location over the weekend! A huge thank you to Muckleshoot tribal member Rachel Heaton for allowing Oregon Field Guide to join this journey!

🌧️⚽️ Artificial turf fields help the PNW survive wet winters — but they may be harming salmon. Researchers in B.C. found that turf fields made with ground‑up tires can release 6PPD‑quinone, a chemical known to kill coho salmon. Runoff from some fields contained multiple times the lethal dose, even years after installation. 🌱 Solutions like rain gardens and bioswales could help keep this toxin out of streams. ✏️ by Jes Burns/OPB ✂️ by Danika Sandoz 🎵 Courtesy of Audio Network #PNW #Salmon #ArtificialTurf #AllScienceNoFiction #UBC @universityofbc

Meet Rosie the duck and her 14 ducklings. The feathered family has lived for the last few weeks in a balcony planter at the Roseville retirement community in Milwaukie. The hatchlings quickly outgrew their third-story nest, and needed assistance to relocate. The journey to a nearby pond turned into a community affair and OPB was invited to follow along. Read more at the link in bio. 🖊️📹 by Kristian Foden-Vencil/OPB 📹 by Saskia Hatvany/OPB ✂️ by Joey Lovato/OPB

Check it out: When you spell OPB using NASA’s Landsat library of Earth-observing satellite images, Crater Lake makes the “O” for Oregon! The "P" and "B" come from rivers in Bolivia and Brazil. NASA launched a new "Your Name In Landsat" tool last week for Earth Day. What name should we spell next?

Several gray whales have recently become stranded and died on Oregon beaches. OPB reporter April Erlich explains what we know (hint: the answer may be related to our warming planet.) Note: This video contains images of deceased whales that some may find disturbing. Read the full story at our link in bio. ✂️📹 by Joey Lovato/OPB 🖊️ by April Erlich/OPB & Jennifer Ng/OPB

Happy Earth Day! Celebrating the wild beauty of our corner of the world. -- the team @oregonfieldguide PS: Can you identify all of these wonderful places, plants and animals? #oregonfieldguide #pacificwonderland #wildoregon #earthday #wildplaces #opb

Where do highly skilled rappel crews train ahead of wildfire season? Central Oregon. For the third consecutive year, the annual national rappel re-certification for the U.S. Forest Service Helicopter Rappel Program was held at the Deschutes National Forest. Hundreds of returning rappeller crewmembers gathered to participate in the week-long re-certification. These specially trained wildland firefighters will be on the frontlines, dropping into the backcountry to respond to all types of fire incidents. With little snow and rain to speak of this winter, forecasters predict above normal activity for the looming fire season. Read more at the link in bio. 🖊️📸: Kathryn Styer Martinez/OPB #earthday #fireseason #bendoregon

Gray whales are still early in their northward migration from Mexico to their feeding grounds in the Bering Sea north of Alaska. Whatever they ate last summer needs to last them through the 12,000-mile journey. The whale strandings seen along the Oregon Coast indicate those summer 2025 meals were not enough. “Most of them are pretty undernourished, skinny, as if they haven’t been eating enough,” said Michael Milstein, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “If we’re seeing this many whales that are undernourished and having trouble this early in the year, what is that going to mean for the rest of the migration?” If you find a stranded whale, the most important thing to do is leave it alone and report it to NOAA’s West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Read the full story at the link in bio. 🖊️: April Ehrlich/OPB� Pictured: 1. In this provided image, a deceased 40-foot male gray whale was found on the south end of Seaside Beach on April 14, 2026. (Courtesy of Tiffany Booth/Seaside Aquarium) 2. Jim Rice, stranding program manager for the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, takes a sample from a deceased gray whale near Yachats, Ore., on April 12, 2026. (Brian Bahouth/KLCC)