Encounters with Octopus, Oyster Farms, and Ocean Views: Life at Duke University Marine Lab

As senior India Haber walked to the laundry room at Duke’s Marine Lab to tumble dry her clothes, she suddenly had a bucket with an octopus in her hands.

Daniel Rittschof, Norman L. Christensen’s distinguished professor of environmental science, had spotted Haber on the other side of the quad and called her to hold the octopus, before quickly leaving it to him.

The octopus tried to crawl out of the bucket, but Haber managed to bring her back long enough to text her friends to come see her. She released him into the ocean before doing her laundry.

Encounters with octopus aren’t as common as dolphin sightings at the Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC, but students there are sure to see more exciting creatures than the squirrels at West Campus.

The Marine Laboratory is three hours from Durham on Piver Island, which Duke shares with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. But it is much more than just a laboratory: it has dormitories, a dining room, a library, several research laboratories, a drone laboratory, classroom spaces and an abundant view of the ocean.

Chosen for its location on the southern tip of the Outer Banks, the Marine Lab has access to the distinctive ocean off Cape Hatteras and the salt marshes and estuaries along the coast. The Rachel Carson Preserve, with its wild ponies, is a short kayak ride away.

The marine lab operates year-round with resident scientists in the natural sciences and social sciences working together, according to Andy Read, director of the marine lab and Stephen A. Toth, distinguished professor of marine biology at the Nicholas School of the Environment.

“We bring that kind of breadth and interdisciplinarity to solve problems in a way that I don’t think any other marine lab in the world does,” Read said.

Summer terms offer courses like organic chemistry that many students take to meet pre-health requirements. Going straight to the bathing dock after a lesson or to the beach after a test makes studying chemical reactions slightly more tolerable.

Some students, like Haber, knew they wanted to go to the Marine Lab when they applied to Duke.

Haber is spending his third semester at the Lab this fall. She started in the lab in 2020 when the college’s COVID-19 restrictions limited much of the typical main campus experience.

One of Haber’s favorite parts of the lab is the tight-knit community there, she said.

“Even the [doctoral] the students who are your professors will come hang out with you at lunch and discuss whatever they want in the world, ”Haber said.

She enjoys community cafes, where everyone on the island gathers for coffee and a chat between classes. The informal meetings and networking that take place on the island have helped her build relationships with the faculty.

Everyone has their first name at the Marine Lab, including the teachers. And with the small class size, it’s easy to get to know everyone. This intimacy is what Read enjoys most about the Marine Lab.

“We’re small, so everyone gets a lot of attention. We take care of each other and we have a very strong culture, ”Read said.

The island setting also promotes a targeted environment. Students are removed from the hustle and bustle of the Durham campus and have time to focus on research and independent projects.

“The Marine Lab provides a slightly decompressed experience,” Read said.

Students can also relax by spending time with the campus cats: the overweight tabby Captain Sly, another tabby called Third Cat, and Domino, a black and white cat who is friendly with security guards.

There is a range of laboratory research possibilities. Haber studies dolphin echolocation by sitting on the Shearwater or on the docks and listening to the calls of dolphins underwater. Another student, Maddie Paris, studies parasites in clams.

One year, Read got a call from a former student working for the Local Whale Stranding Network in the Outer Banks. She told him that they had found a sperm whale that had run aground and died, and she offered to give Read part of the whale to dissect.

Read wanted to give his class of marine mammals the chance to dissect the head of the whale. But carrying the head of a young 25-foot-long sperm whale wasn’t easy. The head had to be dragged from the sandbar off Hatteras Island, placed in a truck, and transported by ferry to the marine laboratory. The dissection was “spectacularly messy,” Read said.

Classroom flexibility is a hallmark of Marine Lab studies.

“You’re out at night, and you’ve never been out at night, and you come across something like an alligator, or a really big fish, or something tiny like a blue crab. Then I learn how people think and what excites them, ”said Rittschof. “I try to tailor the labs and the types of exercises they do to things they find interesting, because if they’re fun they’re a lot more productive.”

About a 20-minute boat ride from the Marine Lab is the campus aquaculture farm established in 2018 by Thomas Shultz, assistant professor of marine molecular conservation practice and director of undergraduate studies at the Marine Lab.

The oyster farm occupies a 0.6 acre square land in the ocean bounded by four posts and five lines of black mesh bags each filled with 150-200 oysters. As students stand waist-deep in the water and turn bags over, they occasionally find stone crabs timidly burying themselves under the collected oysters.

“The aquafarm allows students to get their feet in the mud, which is really a Marine Lab experience,” said Shultz. “You can jump out of the boat, put your feet in the mud, go raise food, delicious oysters.”

Paris, the student researching clam parasites, is spending her fourth semester at the Marine Lab this fall and she loves it.

“If you can possibly change your schedule and make it work, you should come here for at least a summer,” Paris said. “It’s not for everyone all the time, but there is a little something for everyone. And if you love the community and enjoy being outdoors, even a little bit, this is the place to be.