Rebecca Wheaton, an anthropology Ph.D. student, is studying the adaptation of ocean salmon fishing communities affected by Klamath River weak stock management off the coasts of Southern Oregon and Northern California
Rebecca Wheaton
By Ellie Webb-Bowen, CLA Student Writer - May 7, 2025
Rebecca Wheaton, a second-year anthropology Ph.D. student, is studying the relationship between local ecological knowledge and socioeconomic development. Wheaton is a member of the socio-cultural team of Water Quality, Ecology, & Knowledge Co-Production in the Klamath with Professor of Anthropology Bryan Tilt. The team is partnering with the Yurok Tribe in Northern California, as well as agricultural producers, fishing communities, and local residents in the Klamath Basin to understand how the dam removal and river restoration will affect their livelihoods.
“It’s a massive, ongoing ethnographic project,” explained Wheaton. “Our goal is not only to contribute to the academic literature, but also to support informed, community-based decision-making around resource management and environmental governance. We hope our findings will be useful to agencies, educators, and local nonprofits working to make decisions that are both culturally grounded and ecologically sound."
Before attending the School of Language, Culture, and Society, Wheaton grew up in eastern North Carolina. After attending the University of North Carolina Wilmington, she was able to independently explore what anthropology meant to her by moving west. Wheaton worked as a ranch hand in Colorado for many years, where she became interested in sustainable agriculture. Working at a 224-acre working ranch in Carbondale, Wheaton was immersed in hands-on research, including soil building, landscape design, water systems management, as well as livestock and dairy operations.
“I was constantly making notes or inquiring about how things functioned on the farm from the perspective of an anthropologist.” explained Wheaton.
That kickstarted her interest in the human dimensions of food systems work. In 2017, Wheaton moved to the Snoqualmie Valley in Washington to work at a farm & conservation non-profit as an environmental educator program coordinator. Then during the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and maternity leave, she commuted regularly over Snoqualmie Pass to work towards receiving her master’s in cultural and environmental resource management from Central Washington University (CWU).
Wheaton’s master’s thesis tracked food as it moved through different social contexts, as plants in the wildcat farm, as commodities in the campus stores, and as charitable donations to the student-run food pantry. Drawing from over 200 hours of ethnographic fieldwork, Wheaton showed how food became a way to establish relationships between people at CWU. She examined the student-food landscape to understand where and how students at CWU were getting their food.
“I was attempting to shed light on how resources were being distributed to either promote or hinder the success of student food access initiatives and their community impact,” said Wheaton. “Comparing student community needs and perspectives with administrative decision making, there was still a discrepancy between availability and accessibility.”
During her nearly two years as a Research and Evaluation Manager at Cardea, Wheaton co-led equity-focused social impact evaluations that supported local food systems, including King Conservation District’s Regional Food System program. Alongside her colleagues, she worked with farmers, food nonprofits, and local leaders in King County to design culturally responsive evaluation tools, collect and analyze data, and present findings through clear visual reports, helping guide community-based decisions that improved food access and strengthened local agriculture.
Now in the College of Liberal Arts’ Applied Anthropology Ph.D. program with over a decade of experience in cultural and environmental resource management, Wheaton is interested in coastal communities in southern Oregon and northern California and the impacts due to the Klamath River dam removals upstream in Oregon. Wheaton’s socio-cultural subteam is looking to answer: how can diverse views of Klamath Basin communities inform resource management decisions?
Wheaton continued, “The more I’m in these interdisciplinary spaces, the more I see social science playing a really interesting and important role. As an anthropologist, you are continuously navigating an insider-outsider perspective, reflecting on your identity in relation to your research, and always engaged in relationship-building work. In these larger research projects, the time spent building these relationships and working relationally is invaluable.”
With summer research funding through Oregon Sea Grant’s Malouf Marine Studies Scholarship, Wheaton’s part of the larger project, focuses on ocean commercial & recreational salmon fishing in a region long dependent on Klamath River fish stocks. Once a thriving habitat for Chinook salmon migration, the dams upstream prevented Salmon from migrating to their spawning locations. With the removal of the dams, Chinook are now returning to the river and its tributaries. Wheaton’s mixed methods ethnographic study, still in its early stages, will document how fishing communities understand and perceive fisheries management strategies in the wake of the dam removal. She’s also collaborating with Yurok Tribe researchers who are doing similar work with Yurok tribal members.
Though Wheaton’s fieldwork is just ramping up, funding disruptions have put the project’s continuity at risk. As a student and mother, her ability to stay engaged in environmental research depends on the kinds of support programs Sea Grant provides. Without them, the opportunity to document this ecological and cultural transition may be lost, leaving a gap in understanding that can’t easily be filled later.
"Cultural ecology is the study of how people shape–and get shaped by–the environments in which they live,” said Wheaton. “Dam removal and large-scale river restoration projects are bringing changes to the Klamath Basin and these changes are coming in the midst of ongoing environmental, social and economic challenges and opportunities. As I move into fieldwork, my research seeks to surface the deeply influential ways communities understand, respond to, and imagine change. In doing so, I aim to contribute to environmental research that values not only what we can measure, but how we know, relate, and create visions for the future.”