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Note: this was adapted from a presentation Joe Gaydos made to the 2008 Leadership San Juan Islands class in May 2008.

Over the past 7 years the SeaDoc Society has put millions of dollars into studying fish and wildlife. Why? Well the first reason is that scientific information excites us and makes us care; it gives us the information we need to get people excited about marine conservation. American’s love naming. Maybe it goes back to Adam’s task of naming the animals. Anyway, we feel that if you can name an animal, you know it. But is that really true? You recognize and can name a harbor seal, but how deep does it dive? How many do we have in San Juan County? What percentage of the harbor seals are estimated to be hauled out at any one time on a very low tide in the summer time? How long can they live? Why has the population rebounded? Harbor seals can dive to 600 feet with no trouble; then can utilize every foot of our Salish Sea marine ecosystem. We have about 7,000 in San Juan County. We know this because Washington State Fish and Wildlife does aerial surveys in the summer time when we know that about 60% of the seals are hauled out at any one time. Multiply the number counted by a correction factor of 1.6 and you have an estimate for the number of seals. The oldest reported harbor seal was 34 years old. The population has rebounded because of the enactment and enforcement of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Facts like these make an animal much more interesting than its name alone!

It is the same thing with the Southern Resident Killer whales. Why do we care about saving killer whales? There are 3 reasons, the first of which is because we are emotionally tied to them. It is facts like they are a matrilineal society with pod leaders that can live to be 90 years old that makes us care. Just as information like that a female transient killer whale’s first born son will stay with her for her entire life makes us care.

The second reason we care about saving killer whales is because our health is intimately tied to their health and the health of the ecosystem. Southern resident killer whales have some of the highest levels of contaminants in their blubber of any marine mammal in the world. What do they eat? Salmon. How many of us eat salmon? Does that give you cause for concern? It should. Two porpoise species that frequent the Salish Sea provide us with another good example of how human health and well being is intimately tied to the health and well being of fish and wildlife. By studying wildlife and wildlife health, we can learn more about human health. Have you have heard about Cryptococcus gatii, the fungus that is killing people in Washington and BC? This fungus also has killed about 25 porpoise in the region and disease in porpoise has acted as an early warning for human and domestic animal health. We had dead porpoise in Washington before we this disease was killing people or cats.

The third reason we care about healthy fish and wildlife populations is economics. These Steller’s sea frequently seen in the Salish Sea during the winter each weigh about 2,000 pounds. How much salmon do you think one Steller sea lion can eat? What is the impact on endangered salmon stocks? What is the economic tradeoff between having sea lions for ecotourism and having salmon for fishing? I tell you: both salmon and Steller sea lions are important. The importance of salmon is obvious. What about of Steller’s Sea lions. People talk about whale watching, but let’s just talk about watchable wildlife in general rather than focusing on one species. In 2001, over 47% of Washington’s residents participated in wildlife watching. In doing so, Washington residents spent $979 million resulting in a total economic output of $1.78 billion, generating and or maintaining 22,000 jobs. Guess where most wildlife watching occurs” In Washington’s Rural Counties like San Juan County.

Let’s go from a 2,000 pound Steller sea lion, which by the way is larger than a grizzly bear, down to an invertebrate that lives of microscopic plankton. Let’s talk anemones. Let’s talk any of the over 3000 invertebrates we have in the region; take the white-lined dirona, which is just a type of sea slug. It is a beautiful sea slug and it is creatures like these that bring people from all over the world to San Juan County to SCUBA dive. The Washington SCUBA alliance reports that more than 15,000 divers are certified to dive here in the Pacific Northwest yearly.

That’s right, despite the cold water the world’s best known underwater explorer and original SeaDoc Jacques Cousteau rated diving in the Puget Sound as second in the world only to the red sea! More than 1,000 dive related businesses exist in the state.

Let’s move up the food chain a bit. We have over 225 species of fish in the region. In the 1970’s lingcod populations in Puget Sound proper were low, prompting an almost complete moratorium on fishing from 1978 to 1982. The same thing happened in the San Juans in the 80s and 90’s. Good science let us know what was happening with the population and good science gave us a simple solution to solve the problem. Shorten the season. A nine-month fishery with a daily bag limit of 2 was restricted to a 6-week fishery with a daily bag limit of 1. Since 2000, ling cod fishing has substantially improved in the San Juans. This is an example of economics and human health and well being; the ability to harvest local nutritious food.

And just like with marine mammals, fish research allows us to learn how cool fish are. Take a tiger rockfish. We have over 26 species of Rockfish in the Puget Sound area. Science gives us information that excites us about these fish. They are all members of the Scorpionfish family and have poisonous spines. Did you know that? Some are schooling, some are loners, some move, some stay on the same rock their entire adult life. Even if you capture them, take them up into a boat and move them several miles away and release them, they’ll be back at that same rock in a day or two. Science also is helping us to recover rockfish. When were buying out salmon licenses in the 1980’s people thought, hey, we can get these people to fish rockfish – hence the big spike in harvest in 1987 and 1989. Only, there was a little problem. We thought rockfish might live 30 years. Some species like the yellow-eye actually can live 118 years! You see, there is a reason for good science beyond interest, it is called economics.

This is a red- urchin. How old do you think it can live? In Washington State we harvest about 475,000 pounds or about ½ million dollars worth of red urchins annually. I think it is important that we know how long they can live so we can design harvest strategies to sustain the fishery for eternity. Red urchins, by the way, can live to be over 100 years old.

And don’t think I’ve forgotten birds. I have not. We have about 160 species of birds that depend on our marine environment and they embody everything I’ve told you today about why we need research. Take surf scoters as an example. Because the population has declined 50% over the last 25 years we needed to figure out where they went when they were not in Puget Sound. We implanted satellite transmitters and watched these bird - Wow - fly all the way to the Northwest Territories and Ninavut to breed, then back to Puget Sound; maybe some went down to Humboldt Bay to molt and then back here again! The satellite track on one animals shows it flew to the Northwest Territories, across the Beaufort Sea to Alaska then back down to BC and then Washington. Amazing! Science will amaze you and increase your respect for and appreciation of wildlife.

Science also tells us about diseases that birds can carry that can impact human health –diseases like HPAI H5N1, Salmonella, and others.

And of course, there is economics of bird recovery and having sustainable populations of wild birds. Bird watching is one of the most popular wildlife viewing activities for Washingtonians, who have the fourth-highest participation rating in the country. Did you realize that 36% of Washington residents regularly participate in bird watching activities? As a side note, only 16% fish recreationally.

So when you see or think about amazing fish and wildlife, think about how much science has helped us. It helps use appreciate how magnificent they are; It helps us understand how their health and the health of the ecosystem is intimately linked to our health; and it helps us economically, whether it was through harvest or through tourism and watchable wildlife.

Why are we so preoccupied with “saving” the Sonics and so unmoved about saving Puget Sound? Art Thiel, Dwight Perry, Percy Allen, letters to the editor; it seemed like most of Sunday's Seattle Times was about the Seattle Sonics. Thank goodness for William Dietrich’s excellent “love poem, indictment and call to arms” in the Time’s new Footprint magazine or most readers of Sunday’s Times wouldn’t even have thought of Puget Sound. As Dietrich put it, Puget Sound is an ecological showcase responsible for the quality of life that draws software geniuses to Microsoft. I don’t know of any software geniuses, engineers or physicians that came to Microsoft, Boeing or Children’s Hospital because of the Sonics, yet while the health of Puget Sound and its fish and wildlife sit on the brink of ecological collapse, we discuss the Sonics move to Oklahoma. It’s not just the Times. In a study commissioned by Governor Gregoire's Puget Sound Partnership only 8% of people questioned even mentioned the environment when asked what most concerned about the region.

It is not that people don’t care or don’t understand the value of Puget Sound. In that same survey, 90% of the people asked believed that the health of the Sound is critical to the State’s economy. I don’t know what percentage of those same people would say that the Sonics are critical to the State’s economy, but I doubt it is as high. Bill Dietrich suggested that Puget Sound is going to be saved because it has to be, but without improved media coverage, better education, and more science to understand what the right thing to do is, we're not going to save Puget Sound. We need a regional wake up call. We need the citizens and newspapers of the region to get as excited about Puget Sound, the jewel of the Pacific Northwest, as they are about a basketball team with a losing record. In honor of the region’s great music legends like Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, we need to Rock the Sound!

Most citizens and school children in Whatcom County can tell you that Orca whales are endangered. Ask them about marine bird declines and you are likely to get a blank stare. While well over 100 bird species depend on our marine waters for habitat and food, recent work has shown that almost 20 percent of these species have declined significantly enough to warrant listing as threatened or endangered or are candidates for listing in Washington or British Columbia. “At first I couldn’t understand why people were not up in arms,” says Joe Gaydos, Regional Director of the SeaDoc Society and co-author of the recent study. “Then I realized that when you talked with people who have lived on the water for years, they recognized the loss of birds, but in general we were not doing enough to educate the public about these dramatic marine bird declines.” Marine birds feed high on the food web and are good indicators of the health of our marine ecosystem.

On Tuesday, April 22nd, Joe Gaydos, Regional Director of the SeaDoc Society, spoke about declines in sea birds and sea ducks, two groups of marine birds found in Whatcom County. About 60 people attended this presentation, which was hosted by the North Cascades Audubon Chapter.

The SeaDoc Society is a science-based marine conservation program that funds and conducts marine conservation science. For more information see www.seadocsociety.org

To read a manuscript detailing marine birds in decline and other regional species of concern see, Species of Concern within the Georgia Basin Puget Sound Marine Ecosystem: changes from 2002 to 2006.

The Winter 2008 Research Update is available for download.

Hunting May be Responsible for Scoter Declines

The Salish Sea is home to some of North America’s most amazing bird life including one of the world’s largest wintering populations of scoters.

Unfortunately in Puget Sound scoters have declined by over 50% in the last 25 years representing the largest loss of marine bird biomass in Puget Sound. Scientists are trying to learn why scoters are declining precipitously and there is concern that among other problems, hunting could be impacting scoter populations.

A SeaDoc Society-funded study evaluating the impact of hunting on scoter populations found that wintering scoters have high site fidelity and that in four counties (Island, Mason, Skagit and Thurston) scoter harvest levels exceed what is believed to be sustainable. This means that hunting could definitely be impacting the long-term health of these birds in these counties.

These findings were presented to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission last fall and the state is now evaluating what the hunting impact is on the state level and if harvest regulations need to be changed.

Private donations from citizens like you enable the SeaDoc Society to gather and share the information needed to protect and restore the marine fish and wildlife and Salish Sea ecosystem.

Find the PDF version here.

On April 8, Peter Olesiuk of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans will give a talk titled, "Flippers for Feet: Pinnipeds of the Northwest."

The talk is free and open to the public. It takes place a Camp Orkila's Marine/Salmon Center or Orcas Island at 7:00pm.

On March 26, 2008, Joe Gaydos spoke at the South Sound Symposium. His closing comments summarize the research shared at the meeting, and highlight some of the unique stressors on the South Sound ecosystem.

Download the PDF file.