Houghton High grad Works On Ph.D. In Australia

August 24, 2009

Release from: Stacey Ashcraft
The Daily Mining Gazette

HOUGHTON, Mich. - Former Copper Country resident Nicole Phillips spends her days in a science lab in Australia, extracting DNA from sawfish and analyzing the results.

Phillips, a 2000 graduate of Houghton High School who is working on her Ph.D. at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, in conservation genetics, said she loves her work.

"Ever since I was little, I think 10 years old, I wanted to be a marine biologist," she said. "Everyone thought I was going to get over it as every little 10-year-old girl wants to study whales and dolphins but I wanted to work with sharks. I never gave up on it."

Phillips went to Michigan Technological University for two years and studied biology but transferred to study marine biology in New York. It was her passion to study abroad in Australia that took Phillips to the country where she would later study sawfish.

"I just decided to go over there, to move there and see what happens," she said.

She completed a marine science degree in Australia and approached the idea of working with sharks. While working in Australia, Phillips was featured on Animal Planet which aired in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe as well as Australia. She also will be featured in the United States version of National Geographic sometime in the fall for her work in marine biology and her special work with sawfish populations in Australia.

"I said I always wanted to be on National Geographic," she said. "I didn't expect to get on this early and it's great to do something I always wanted to do."

Phillips learned that sawfish, which are born just under 3 feet long and grow up to 31 feet long, get caught in fishing nets quite easily. As the sawfish are caught, people sometimes cut the saw off and keep it as a token -- an act which is now illegal.

"After the saw is cut off, they are usually thrown back alive and we don't think they live very long without the saw -- they need it -- and sometimes they're taken for the fins so it's used in shark fin soup in Asia," she said.

Sawfish numbers have declined everywhere except northern Australia as sawfish need saws to swipe and stun their prey.

"It's the one place we're finding a lot of them," she said.

Phillips travels across Australia in search of saws to test and asks people who have a saw in their possession if she can extract DNA for testing. She uses the data to determine how much variation there is within a species.

"I've seen some that are about 100 years old and I can still get DNA from them," Phillips said.

But people are sometimes unwilling to help because they fear getting into trouble.

"When you ask (some people) they say, 'No, I don't have any sawfish saws,' but as you keep talking to them and all of a sudden they have eight or 10 in their house," she said.

Phillips said she has tested nearly 300 saws across Australia and has even approached individuals who have several saws in their possession.

"I put up fliers, I put notices in the newspapers that say, 'If you have a saw, can I come look at it,"' Phillips said. "One guy has given me 150 saws."

Governments want to protect sawfish but lack research and knowledge of sawfish, she said.

"My project is to look at how much genetic diversity are in the populations, so obviously, if there's no genetic diversity, you end up with inbreeding and the population is probably not going to make it very long," she said.

Phillips and her team also determine how many populations expand along Australia. The project's main idea: Animals that don't have genetic variation have little chance to cope and adapt.

Some members of the group tag the juvenile sawfish while others take samples for Phillips, who works primarily in the lab. She rarely accompanies teammates in the water to get the fin clips.

"I'm terrified of crocodiles," she said. "It's one of those things you do a couple times."