Safety is crucial for a marine science organization that’s working regularly on the dynamic waters of the Salish Sea. Whether it’s a simple boat ride or a full day of SCUBA dives amid changing tides and currents, it’s important to be prepared.
That’s why Team SeaDoc annually schedules a week of training to refresh not only our core safety skills, but to build and develop new ones as well.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 2026 Wine & Sea Auction! Under the theme Expanding Science, Expanding Hope, we gathered on a beautiful, sunny Orcas Island afternoon to celebrate the power of science, community, and generosity in protecting the Salish Sea.
Thanks to our donors, sponsors, guests, and volunteers, this year's event was a great fundraising success that will help fuel SeaDoc’s ongoing work. Your generosity is an investment in hope—for marine wildlife, healthy ecosystems, and the people who care deeply about this remarkable place.
From mercury and cadmium to selenium and zinc, the elements that accumulate in an animal's body can offer valuable clues about its health and the environment it inhabits. A newly published study in the international journal PLOS ONE is helping scientists better understand what those clues look like in one of the Pacific Northwest's most iconic marine mammals: killer whales.
Drawing on 25 years of opportunistically collected tissue samples from stranded killer whales across the northeastern Pacific Ocean, researchers analyzed concentrations of both essential and non-essential elements in three distinct killer whale ecotypes—fish-eating residents, mammal-eating transients, and offshore killer whales that specialize in eating sharks and other fish. The study represents the largest and most comprehensive dataset of its kind ever assembled for killer whales worldwide.
We’re excited to announce that SeaDoc Society will fund six new science projects in 2026, investing nearly $270,000 in research to better understand and protect the Salish Sea. Carefully selected by our brilliant Scientific Advisory Committee and made possible by passionate donors like you, these projects tackle some of the region’s most important conservation challenges.
Last month a special group of SeaDoc supporters joined our team for a low-tide walk along the shores of the Salish Sea. With the Salish Sea shorelines pulled back, we spent the evening exploring tide pools, spotting sea stars and crabs, and getting a closer look at the incredible marine life that’s often hidden beneath the surface.
Like our good friend Adam Summers over at Friday Harbor Labs told us, you have to be tough to survive in the intertidal waters. Depending on the tides and the seasons, these species can spend hours under the sea or in the direct sunlight; or sloshing about in between the two! Our Science Director Joe Gaydos often shares that message before we respectfully explore the wonders of the intertidal, always leaving it as we came.
We recently funded a project that will study smelt habitat, which is being encroached upon by development. The project uses underwater cages to measure pollution exposure, which you can read about in our June blog post.
Photojournalist Gemina Garland-Lewis is shadowing the team in the field. Here are photos from a recent excursion.
The ocean and the rainforests are the lungs of our planet and without the oceans, we lose everything.
I am involved with and support several key wildlife and nature groups throughout the world. My philosophy is to only support groups who can make a positive difference on the ground, such as groups who move the needle in a positive direction for their specifically targeted goals. The SeaDoc Society does just that, they are such wonderful, smart people, doing great work, and are making a tangible difference.
How do you conduct research on tiny, elusive fish that live hundreds of feet below the surface, burrow under the sandy seafloor, and are only half the size of a dollar bill? Like any challenge in marine biology, when there’s a will, there’s a wave.
In 2018, SeaDoc and Ocean Gate worked together to bring a submersible to the San Juan Islands for researchers needing such a platform for their work. A team of scientists from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, University of Washington, Moss Landing Laboratories, and Tombolo Mapping Laboratory was awarded sub time to study a very important forage fish.
Is a newly discovered shell-boring worm a threat to Olympia oysters—a species of concern and the only oyster species in the Salish Sea?
Dr. Chelsea Wood and her team at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences aims to answer that question. If so, this will be crucial information to modify the current restoration plan for Olympia Oysters (Ostrea lurida).
Our dive team has been out surveying for young of the year #rockfish this week with colleagues at Paua Marine Research. While did find the baby rockfish we set out for, we had another exciting finding!
We saw five different large sunflower sea stars. SeaDoc and colleagues have published several papers showing how these “world’s largest” sea stars have been decimated by sea star wasting disease and we’ve worked with numerous organizations to help get them listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN.
It’s easy when you live in the Salish Sea to feel like you’re sort of perpetually camping. Water surrounds you, trees line up on the horizon, the air is fresh, etc. etc. etc. But you also have a phone in your pocket and bills to pay and new series to binge on Netflix. Sure it’s beautiful outside, but those are the trappings of regular nine-to-five type stuff. The forays into nature are carved out and fleeting.
We’re excited to introduce you to Tara Craig and Brenna Normann—two fairly new supporters of SeaDoc Society who immediately jumped on board as engaged monthly donors. Their employer matches each monthly donation, meaning their support is not only sustained but also doubled! Does your employer offer to match your charitable giving? Ask them or search for your employer here!
Our team spends a lot of time out on the water, especially this time of year. We always prioritize safety, and we have a great crew with varying degrees of responsibility, but those skills need tending, and we spent a full week in June doing just that with our friends at the UC Davis Boat and Dive Safety Program.
We’ve shared some photos below and some thoughts from our staff. Thanks to the team down at the Bodega Marine Lab for a great week!
Our Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum is being deployed throughout the region, and recently one classroom put together their own documentary based on what they learned. Check it out!
Last week marked the release of the highly anticipated State of the Salish Sea Report, authored by Kathryn L. Sobocinski of Western Washington University. SeaDoc Society Science Director Joe Gaydos has served on the advisory committee for the project since 2016.
Joe’s involvement began when Bert Webber, who led the charge to name the Salish Sea, and Ginny Broadhurst of the Salish Sea Institute, invited him onto the 8-person committee.
This spring, author, naturalist and educator David B. Williams published his latest book, Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of the Puget Sound.”
Our Science Director played a role in the scientific review of the book, which he called “a beautiful narrative that is not only entertaining but informative and will transform our understanding of the region.”
The book is an appealing way for newcomers and old timers alike to connect or reconnect with the place that they live.
Surf smelt are small fish that play a big role in the food chain, serving as a key food source for sport fish, including the salmon that feed the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. They spawn near the shore in areas most vulnerable to land-based pollution.
We recently funded a project that will study smelt habitat, which is being encroached upon by development. The results could help us better understand and protect shorelines.
Take a moment to think about a black-and-white animal that lives in the Salish Sea, depends on fish, and is threatened by human activities. Did you think orca, or did a certain marine bird come to mind? For Dr. Eric Anderson, he had birds on the brain.
Anderson, Program Head of the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Ecological Restoration Program and researcher at Friday Harbor Laboratories, studies animals that are much smaller than the giant, charismatic toothed whales that traverse our inland waters. He studies scoters–specifically, white-winged scoters and surf scoters. Easily mistaken for a puffin, scoters are stocky sea ducks that spend winter and spring in the Salish Sea before migrating north to Canada and Alaska to lay their eggs and raise young. Once a common sight in this region, scoter populations have declined by over 60% in the past 50 years. And just like endangered Southern Resident killer whales, which suffer from three main threats, the decline of scoters can be linked to not one, but multiple human-caused issues.
Salmon are born in freshwater and migrate to sea, where they feed and grow before returning to their mother stream to breed and die. Along the way they feed everything from endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales to bugs, bears and the forest itself.
Salmon are the cornerstone of our ecosystem, but many runs are in grave danger, particularly the wild Chinook. In this episode of Salish Sea Wild, Dr. Joe Gaydos takes a swim up the Skagit River to get a close-up look at these amazing fish. Written and produced by Bob Friel and SeaDoc Society.
Tacoma Public School students are taking a big step into their local ecosystem.
While the pandemic has disrupted in-person schooling nationwide, Tacoma Public Schools is piloting a new Explore the Salish Sea science curriculum district-wide that adventurous fifth grade teachers at two Tacoma schools implemented last year.
Explore the Salish Sea is an education program of the SeaDoc Society — a marine science organization based on Orcas Island and a program of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at the University of California, Davis. The curriculum is built on the book of the same name, authored by SeaDoc Society Science Director Joe Gaydos and board member Audrey Benedict.
If more than 70% of the earth’s surface is ocean and we even call it the blue planet, then why have we so grossly understudied marine ecosystems from a conservation science perspective? It might be that not enough humans realize how the ocean creates the water we drink, the oxygen we breath and the food we eat. Afterall, if everybody knew how critical the ocean is for life on earth, we’d surely be taking better care of it.
