When shell-boring marine worms were first documented in Olympia oysters in 2020, they raised an important question for restoration: were these parasites always part of the Salish Sea ecosystem, or were they accidentally introduced with Pacific oysters a century ago? That mystery sent researchers on an investigation thousands of years into the past.
After nearly a decade of valuable guidance as a member of SeaDoc Society's Scientific Advisory Committee, we want to thank Jamie Donatuto for her service! Jamie has helped shape SeaDoc Society's science funding since 2017 in her capacity as community environmental health analyst for the Swinomish Tribe. SeaDoc Soiety has funded dozens of projects to the tune of many hundreds of thousands of dollars since Jamie joined the committee 9 years ago.
Can I tell you a story that changed my life?
We crested the hill on the west side of San Juan Island and watched as Haro Strait opened up before us. It was July 7th, 1987—my 18th birthday.
Next came the sound of blows echoing across the water, and there they were: nearly a hundred Southern Resident Killer Whales all within calling distance of each other! I would later learn that every member of J, K, and L Pods was in attendance that day. A true Superpod.
I stepped out of the car and started to cry.
SeaDoc Society is thrilled to welcome two new members to our Scientific Advisory Committee, which plays a vital role in our mission to fund and conduct impactful science here in the Salish Sea. Our newest members are Tim Ragen and Noelani Villa, both of whom bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to our team.
A lifelong marine scientist and conservation leader, Tim Ragen has spent decades advancing the protection of ocean wildlife. Meanwhile Noelani Villa is blending science, culture and community to help shape a more resilient future for Tribal nations and coastal ecosystems. Learn more about Tim and Noelani below! Welcome to the team!
During a recent research dive, SeaDoc scientists Joe Gaydos and Cat Lo spotted a large Ghost Net strewn across the Salish Sea floor. Not only do these nets strangle and kill wildlife, but they’re also a danger to divers. Cat supported to Joe as he hooked a bright marker to the net, ensuring that he didn’t get entangled in the process. When the divers returned to the boat, Erika dropped a GPS point to mark the exact location and the team alerted our friends at the Northwest Straits Foundation.
The following maps were produced by the Center for Habitat Studies at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in cooperation with Tombolo, the SeaDoc Society, Natural Resources Canada, and the Canadian Hydrographic Service.
Each quadrant has three maps: bathymetry, backscatter, and habitat.
Quadrant 1:
Quadrant 2:
Quadrant 3:
Quadrant 4:
Photo by Dorothy Davis.
Dr. Deborah Brosnan, a founding member of the SeaDoc Society's Board, was recently honored as a Irish Education 100 fellow. The award honors Irish educators who have had an impact on the education system of the United States. A marine scientist, Brosnan was recognized for her work on ocean ecosystem hazards and their effects on humans. Brosnan's organization, the Brosnan Center, focuses on ocean ecosystems, building resilience for environmental disasters and extreme events, integrating science to solve pressing problems, and planning for a changing world.
Read the award citation PDF.
Congratulations, Deborah!
Dr. Lesanna Lahner from the Seattle Aquarium and Paul Cottrell of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada keep the sea lion close to the boat. Photo: J. Gaydos
Earlier in the week Joe Gaydos was able to work with a skilled team of experts from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada and the Seattle Aquarium to disentangle a 1,400 lb. Steller sea lion that was being strangled by a piece of packing strap. The animal was immobilized by remote injection of an anesthetic cocktail. Once it was sedated, the team cut the packing strap loose and reversed the anesthesia, allowing the fully recovered animal to swim away free.
Plastic packing strap removed from sea lion
Like any complex procedure performed by trained experts, this procedure looks rather straight forward to any onlooker, but is actually the product of years of development by Dr. Marty Haulena and colleagues. It requires a skilled team of boat drivers, biologists, veterinarians and veterinary technicians.
Gaydos and Seattle Aquarium Veterinarian Dr. Lesanna Lahner are working with NOAA Fisheries to import the protocol into Washington and Oregon.
See more photos at the Vancouver Aquarium's Marine Mammal Rescue Centre's Facebook page.
Juvenile invasive isopod Ianiropsis serricaudis on alga. Scale bar 0.3mm. Photo by Eric Lazo-Wasem, from Hobbs, et al., 2015
A recent publication on the global introduction of the Asian isopod Ianiropsis serricaudis was a by-product of a study we funded to evaluate the impact of invasive tunicates in the Salish Sea (Cordell et al., 2012). The publication shows that this invasive isopod is well-established in communities of fouling organisms throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
While the actual ecological impact of this isopod in the Salish Sea (or in other areas where it has been introduced) is unknown, it is interesting that in multiple places, including Puget Sound, its presence is strongly associated with the introduced tunicate Didemnum vexillum or with other introduced ascidians including Botrylloides violates and Styela clava.
Sometimes, such as with this paper, science only reveals small pieces of the mosaic, but with continued work it ultimately helps us see and understand the larger picture, which hopefully will permit us to better design health coastal ecosystems!
Did you know that diseases like canine distemper virus can spread from domestic dogs to wildlife? It's a problem around the world, with infections in lions, tigers, hyenas, ferrets, North American river otters, raccoons, bears, and more. Two seal species, Baikal and Caspian seals, have also experienced distemper outbreaks. In January 2015, Joe Gaydos presented a paper titled Canine Distemper in Wildlife: How Private Practitioners Can Help at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Florida.
Proper vaccination of domestic animals can help contain outbreaks. A similar virus, Rinderpest, which circulated between wild and domestic animals in Africa, was eradicated after a massive campaign to vaccinate domestic livestock.
In 2008, SeaDoc published a paper investigating whether the Giardia and Cryptosporidium parasites in harbor seals in the Salish Sea were connected with canine parasites.
Video of lion with distemper:
Adult harbor seal canine tooth vs Steller sea lion canine tooth. Photo: J. Gaydos
Did you know that seals, sea lions and other animals put down annular growth rings on their teeth? This means that you can age an animal that has died by counting the growth rings on a sectioned tooth much like you can do for a tree that has been cut down. We were pulling teeth to age some stranded animals as part of our collaborative work with the Whale Museum and San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network and were once again amazed at how large Steller sea lions are. Check out this shot comparing lower canines of an adult harbor seal and a Steller sea lion!
In November of 2014, Jared Towers of MERS, the Marine Education and Research Society, spoke about his research on minke whales.
Minkes are the smallest baleen whales in the North Pacific Ocean, averaging 26 to 29 feet in length, but also one of the fastest of all the whales and dolphins. They are estimated to live for 30-60 years, are normally solitary, and prefer to spend time in very specific habitats where they forage on small schooling fishes.
Jared Towers is involved in several cutting edge research projects with minke whales, including investigations into their population structure, their habitat use, and their vocal repertoire.
Jared Towers is a cetacean expert with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Research Director at MERS, the Marine Education and Research Society, a non-profit that studies whales and dolphins in BC and around the world.
How safe is wild-harvested seaweed to eat?
Seaweeds are a nutritious source of protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. The harvest and consumption of various species of seaweed has historically been, and continues to be, important for the Coast Salish, and is gaining in popularity with non-tribal citizens interested in wild foraging.
Unfortunately very little data are available on the levels of contaminants in local seaweeds, leaving native and non-native consumers of this food source in the dark about whether they are harvesting healthy nutritious food or are being exposed to potentially harmful contaminants.
A new SeaDoc Society study, funded by generous private donations, will test for the presence and concentration of three classes of contaminants:
Samples will be collected from sites considered safe and those considered potentially hazardous. They will be analyzed at the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at UC Davis.
Results will be shared with volunteers, tribes, and the Washington Department of Health.
Jennifer Hahn, author of the famous wild foraging book Pacific Feast (also an Adjunct Professor at Western Washington University) and SeaDoc's Joe Gaydos are collaborating with Robert Poppenga, a toxicologist at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, on this project.
Banner photo: Bull kelp by Dan Hershman via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0
Harbor porpoise by Florian Graner. Licensed through NaturePL.com.
Peer-reviewed publication:
Noren, S. R., D. P. Noren, and J. K. Gaydos. 2014. Living in the fast lane: rapid development of the locomotor muscle in immature harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena). Journal of Comparative Physiology B. December 2014, Volume 184, Issue 8, pp 1065-1076.
This study -- based on harbor porpoise tissue samples collected from strandings, fishery bycatch, or observed killings by killer whales -- looked at muscle development in juvenile harbor porpoises to understand how fast they mature into physically competent adults.
This is important because it shows that immature harbor porpoises can't dive as well as adults and consequently have limitations on the kinds of habitat they can use. It brings attention to the concept that what might be okay for adult harbor porpoise (such as a certain level of boat traffic), might not be something that harbor porpoise calves can deal with as well as adults can.
Humans aren’t born ready to hunt down game animals — or even order Chinese food. We need mothers to protect and feed us at least until we can read a take-out menu. Life is somewhat similar for baby dolphins and porpoises.Diving ability in marine mammals depends on specialized biochemistry. High concentrations of myoglobin provide oxygen to muscles so divers can remain active while holding their breath. They’re also able to buffer the flush of lactic acid from anaerobic activity after the oxygen is depleted. It takes time, though, for newborn cetaceans to develop these special abilities.
A recent study by SeaDoc and Drs. S. Noren from UC Santa Cruz and D. Noren from National Marine Fisheries Service Northwest Fisheries Science Center (Seattle) used samples collected by the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network to measure diving capabilities in harbor porpoise, the Salish Sea’s smallest and most bashful cetacean. The results show that harbor porpoise achieve adult myoglobin levels by 9-10 months of age, and increased acid buffering as 2-3 year olds. This is faster than other cetaceans, which tracks with their earlier maturity and shorter lifespan. However, the study also proves that there is a period of time when harbor porpoise calves cannot keep up with the adults. This probably limits the habitat range and foraging of mothers and calves, leaving them vulnerable to habitat degradation.
SeaDoc and collaborators have recently undertaken a study to pinpoint harbor porpoise calving times so that we can further protect them at this delicate stage.
Harbor porpoise workshop: On February 7, 2013, the Pacific Biodiversity Institute, Cascadia Research Collective and the SeaDoc Society hosted scientists from Washington and British Columbia to determine the state of knowledge on harbor porpoises and coordinate ongoing research efforts. Read the statement identifying research needs.
Two new scientists have come on board as SeaDoc Science Advisors. Since our inception, this important group has help prioritize and guide our scientific investigations.
We’d like to extend a big welcome to Billie Swalla (Director, UW Friday Harbor Labs) and Jim West (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife)!
Billie Swalla is the Director of the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories, and joins the Science Advisors to bring the expertise of the Labs to the table. Swalla is an expert in the evolution of chordates (species with a central nervous system on their back sides and internal organs on the front side - like humans) and has been working at UW since 1999.
Jim West is an expert in toxics and fishes who works as a senior research scientist at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He has published papers on such topics as toxic hydrocarbons in Pacific herring, differences in rockfish growth between ocean and inland waters, and persistent organic pollutants in marine plankton, among many others.
We extend a most heartfelt thank you to retiring Science Advisors Wayne Palsson (NOAA Fisheries) and Ken Sebens (past director of UW Friday Harbor Labs) for your many years of insight and guidance. Our program is stronger thanks to your work!
There’s convincing science that no-take marine reserves help recover rockfish, abalone, and other threatened or endangered species that call these rocky habitats home. But what are the economic costs and benefits of marine reserves?
Most of the existing data is about the costs of marine reserves. For example, marine reserves limit fishing, and therefore have a negative effect on the commercial and recreational fishing industry.
But very little is known about the economic benefits of no-take marine reserves.
A new SeaDoc project will quantify the economic benefit of appropriately designed no-take marine reserves to the SCUBA diving industry and local economies.
Over 100 dive shops in Washington and British Columbia train and equip thousands of divers annually. These recreational divers spend handsomely to maintain their certification, purchase equipment, travel to dive sites, procure lodging, and pay for dive charters. But no one has ever conducted an economic valuation of SCUBA diving in the Salish Sea.
Resource decisions are often a trade-off between benefits to the target species and economic impacts to the people that rely on them to make a living or for recreation. Missing from this trade-off is a proper accounting for the extra economic activity that can be created by an effort to save fish and wildlife.
Project results will have a direct impact on efforts by NOAA Fisheries and the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife as they consider the merits of establishing a network of no-take reserves for rockfish recovery. Results will also be shared with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada as they re-evaluate the effectiveness of their Rockfish Conservation Areas.
This project is sponsored by a generous private contribution, without which it would not be possible.
Banner photo courtesy of Janna Nichols.
Courtesy of Jerry Kirkhart via Flickr CC.
Joe Gaydos was quoted in a New Scientist article about the implications of diet changes for gulls. In a recently published paper (find a link to it in the New Scientist article, below), UBC's Louise Blight and collaborators looked at feather samples to understand how gull diets have changed over the past 149 years. The results show that as the birds' diets have changed from fish to more garbage, the result has been population declines and lower fertility in glaucous-winged gulls.
Overfishing has meant that one of the gulls' favourite fish species, the highly nutritious eulachon, is now considered threatened in the Salish Sea area. Another former staple, the Pacific herring, no longer forms the large aggregations that gulls once feasted on.
SeaDoc recently published a study about population declines in diving birds. This study linked the highest risk of population decline to birds with very specific diets involving forage fish like eulachon and herring.
In the article, Joe Gaydos is quoted: "[Gull] populations should not decline as quickly as specialist feeders. The fact that generalists like gulls could be in decline is definitely worrisome."
Read the article, which has a link to the published paper.
This month SeaDoc welcomes two new board members, Ingrid Rasch and Dave Roberts.
Ingrid Rasch is a community activist and non-profit volunteer. She currently chairs the board of Earth Economics, a non-profit that focuses on rigorous analysis of the value of natural systems. In her career she was VP of Human Resources for Sonus Pharmaceuticals and Senior VP of Human Resources at the $10+ billion Stop & Shop Supermarket Company. She also led the first human resources department at Microsoft. Ingrid is a board member of the Sustainable Path Foundation, a member of the Washington State Wildlife Diversity Advisory Council, and a director of the Pacific Northwest chapter of E2 - Environmental Entrepreneurs.
Ingrid says, "I am passionate about restoring the Salish Sea in my lifetime --- and I'm old, so we need to hurry!"
Note: Ingrid isn't actually that old! :)
Dave Roberts is the former CEO of PopCap Games in Seattle, which he helped build from a small studio into a company that was sold to Electonic Arts for more than $750 million. Prior to PopCap, Dave was an executive at Visual Communications Group, founded an interactive publishing company, and served in management roles at Aldus and Apple Computer. He is a member of the advisory board for the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. He splits his time between Seattle and the San Juan Islands.
Bird band found on Eastsound beach in 2014
A few weeks back our friend Trey Vore showed up at the SeaDoc office with a metal bird band he'd found on the beach in Eastsound.
The band read "Advise Wildlife Service. Write Washington DC USA." And it had a number on it.
(Oddly enough, though, no web address...)
Joe Gaydos knows just what to do with this kind of thing, and he reported the band on the US Geological Survey website.
Turns out the band had been put on a California Gull at some location south of a town called Williams, Montana in 1961.
Williams, MT, is east of the rockies
We're not suggesting the gull lived 50 years, but it does seem likely that it flew from Montana to the shores of Eastsound, where it eventually died.
Keep a lookout on the beach. You never know what you'll find...
If you love killer whales, take 10 minutes and watch this video podcast from NOAA Fisheries.
NOAA and the Vancouver Aquarium teamed up to photograph Northern Resident Killer Whales from an unmanned aerial vehicle (with the proper permits, of course).
The footage and the photographs are beautiful, but when you watch the video you'll see how much information scientists are able to gather just by looking at these high-resolution photographs.
You'll learn how to identify whales that are starving, doing well, and even ones that are pregnant.
Sharon Wootton wrote a nice piece in The Everett Herald on SeaDoc's recently-published peer reviewed paper on river otter diet. The concern was that river otters might be hampering rockfish recovery. Turns out while river otters do eat some juvenile rockfish, they primarily eat other intertidal and shallow subtidal fish. Get the full story at The Everett Herald site.
Colleen Armstrong of The Islands' Sounder wrote about SeaDoc's collaboration with divers from the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF.org) on the front page of the paper.
The story included links to REEF's database where you can see detailed findings, including color images of creatures found, for different locations and areas. Visit The Islands' Sounder site to read the article.
Banner photo courtesy of Janna Nichols / REEF.
Photos by Janna Nichols / REEF
The subtidal area is one of the least known parts of the Salish Sea. It's a fantastically colorful and complex place seen only by SCUBA divers and scientists. This is why we partnered with Reef Environmental Education Foundation (www.REEF.org) last year to use trained volunteer divers to keep an eye on what is happening below the water.
So how long does it take to see dramatic changes in subtidal areas?
Turns out a year is enough.
When we first started this subtidal monitoring project in 2013 we anticipated we might have enough data to see changes after 8 or 10 years.
But last October our dives took place just before the now-infamous sea star die-off. At some of the sites where we collected data, divers might have seen on average 20-30 sunflower sea stars. When we re-visited these sites last week, they were mostly gone. Seeing just one was cause for conversation, especially if it was healthy.
Of course, not all the changes were so pronounced, but that doesn't mean the data aren't valuable. Our goal is not only to study changes, but also to document current conditions so that future scientists will have a scientifically-rigorous baseline for understanding potential future shifts in our local environment. Wouldn't it be nice if we had this kind of data from the 1960s?
This year, our team of REEF-trained Advance Assessment Team expert divers returned to 7 sites we surveyed last year, and added 3 new sites. By the end of ten years, we'll have long-term data on up to 20 representative sites around the region. Super cool!
Ever want to get a glimpse of the cool creatures that make the Salish Sea a world-wide mecca for cold water divers? Check out more pictures on the REEF Facebook page.
At their April 2015 meeting, the Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously to approve listing the tufted puffin as endangered in Washington State. The listing became official in mid-May.
Thanks to the Fish and Wildlife Commission for taking this important step!
Read the scientific status report that made this listing possible. (PDF)
In early February, the Fish and Wildlife Commission heard public comments on listing the tufted puffin as endangered.
The Commission will make a decision at their April 9-10 meeting in Olympia. Public comments will be accepted until April 8.
To make your voice heard, send a short comment by email to commission@dfw.wa.gov before April 8.
Read the updated status report (with public comments attached)
Once again we want to say thank you to the generous donors who made it possible for SeaDoc to fund the crucial Status Review that set this process in motion.
Bill Briare via cc
It's been a long time coming, but Washington State is in the final stage of deciding whether or not to list the Tufted puffin as a state endangered species.
Tufted puffins used to breed at 43 different nesting colonies in Washington State. Now they are found at only 19, and the state's population is 1/10th of what it was in 1984.
Tufted puffins have been candidates for listing in Washington State since 1998. But you can't move from candidate to listed species without a formal scientific status review. Since the Department of Fish and Wildlife didn't have the resources to write the status review, nothing happened for a long time.
Then SeaDoc stepped in. We knew it was important to get the status review written so that the State could eventually create a recovery plan for puffins. So in 2010 we raised money from private individuals, with gifts ranging from $100 to $23,000. (Crowdfunding before crowdfunding was cool.)
With that money we hired scientist Thor Hanson (familiar to many of you as the author of the award-winning book, Feathers) to draft the status review. Since completion several years ago the report has undergone further editing and refinement by WDFW scientist Gary Wiles, and has been externally reviewed by scientists.
While you're reading the Tufted puffin status review, note that WDFW is also taking comments on another species, Steller sea lions. But this time the proposal is to take them OFF the threatened species list because they've made a strong recovery. Get the full story here.
Want to learn more about threatened and endangered species in the Salish Sea? Every two years SeaDoc tallies all the species in the Salish Sea that are threatened, endangered, or are candidates for listing by Canada, British Columbia, the USA, or Washington State. See the most recent list here through the button below.
The California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project (a self-sustaining project of the SeaDoc Society that operates without any donated funds), got a nice write-up in the Del Norte Triplicate. Kirsten Gilardi, SeaDoc's executive director, and Jen Renzullo, the field manager for the lost gear project, were featured for their innovative work where north coast crab fishermen are actually recovering lost crab pots and turning a profit by selling the pots back to their original owners.
Read the full article or get more of the story on the UC Davis website.
“The most exciting thing about this project is that the fishermen themselves are taking the lead,” said Kirsten Gilardi, director of the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project, a program of the SeaDoc Society, which is part of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “They are mobilizing the fishermen to participate, conducting all the transactions of funds and gear, and even realizing financial benefits for their hard work to clean the ocean.”
Banner photo: Jennifer Renzullo of SeaDoc’s California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project heads out to sea with fishermen from Eureka to collect lost crabbing gear. Photo courtesy of J. Cox.
