SeaDoc Science Advisor Peter Ross leads a new ocean pollution initiative

Photo: Neil Fisher and Vancouver Aquarium

The Vancouver Aquarium announced in February the launch of its new Ocean Pollution Science Program. The program will conduct critically important research on the sources and consequences of ocean pollution. Dr. Peter Ross, a scientist with 25 years of experience in marine pollution research, will lead the program. Dr. Ross is also a long-time SeaDoc Society Science Advisor. In that capacity he has helped shape SeaDoc's research agenda and our transboundary initiatives with Canadian scientists.

"Threats to ocean health include urban and industrial effluents, runoff from forestry and agriculture, oil and gas shipping and exploration, plastics and debris, and climate change," says Dr. Ross. "Understanding the nature and extent of these threats provide a crucial basis for policies and practices that will protect ocean health for future generations. Vancouver Aquarium's Ocean Pollution Science Program will conduct international-caliber scientific research on ocean pollution—and provide comprehensive and authoritative information for individuals, communities and countries." The Program will help inform partners and stakeholders in the science, government and private sectors on the health of our oceans.

"This is an area of study that must not be overlooked," says Dr. Ross. "By launching this program, we're meeting immediate scientific, conservation and education needs. The Aquarium is stepping up to the plate on an issue that is often vexing and complex but also worthy of dedicated research."

For more, visit the Ocean Pollution Science Program's web page at the Vancouver Aquarium site.

What killed orca L112?

Joe Gaydos conducting the necropsy by Sandy Buckley

What killed the 3-year-old killer whale that washed up in Southern Washington a couple of years ago? Joe Gaydos was one of 15 investigators who studied the whale to try to understand what happened to it. Their report was published February 25, 2014.

Joe was quoted in the Associated Press article about the report:

"This whale was killed from a blunt-force trauma, but [despite] every effort possible, we couldn't tell if it came from another ship or whale," said Joseph Gaydos, a co-author of the report and wildlife veterinarian with SeaDoc Society, a program of the Wildlife Health Center at the University of California, Davis' School of Veterinary Medicine. "The evidence doesn't support that it was a sonar episode or explosion."

See the full article by Phuong Le at the Seattle Times.

L112 Stranding Final Report

The Southern Resident Killer Whales Recovery Plan makes responding to standings of killer whales a priority. The Northwest Marine Mammal Stranding Network has nearly completed its investigation of the stranding involving southern resident L112 (Sooke) on Long Beach, Washington, February 11, 2012. Based on findings from the gross examination and the absence of conclusive histopathology or ancillary test results The Network team found that blunt force trauma was the primary consideration for the acute death of the animal. Weather and sea surface data for coastal Oregon and Washington, and drift patterns for the Columbia River plume suggested that L112 had likely been carried for some days in the Columbia River eddies or drifted from the south before being cast on Long Beach. Sonar and small underwater explosive activities were confirmed by the Royal Canadian Navy on February 4, 5, and 6, 2012 in Canadian waters off Vancouver Island and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca but no marine mammals were observed during the activities. The activities occurred too far to the north and downwind of the stranding location to be a consideration in the stranding.

You can find the final draft of the report and background documents at the NOAA website.

Video: Gary Greene on Exploring the Salish Seafloor

You don’t go looking for lions on the Arctic tundra or for grizzly bears in the tropical rainforest – that is if you hope to find them. The topside world presents a wide variety of biomes inhabited by plants and animals adapted to survive in each special place. Our underwater world is no different. However, for people working to recover the Salish Sea, it’s been harder to protect threatened marine creatures and their critical underwater habitats simply because it’s so difficult to find them.

Beneath the surface of the Salish Sea lie a dazzling variety of habitats. We all know about kelp forests and eelgrass meadows and the riot of life they support, but did you know that we have huge “sand waves” that shelter vast schools of sand lance and provide foraging environment for birds like Tufted Puffins and Rhinoceros Auklets? Or that all of the various bottom features scientists have identified – glacial moraines, earthquake-generated rock piles, vertical ice-cut rock walls and mud-filled bays and sounds – each support their own collection of animals?

SeaDoc’s exciting new Tombolo Seafloor Mapping Laboratory is addressing real-time conservation needs by pinpointing Salish Sea habitats. When your goal is to protect important marine creatures like our threatened rockfish species, you can’t get there without a map.

Salmonella in wildlife: presentation at North American Veterinary Conference

At the 2014 North American Veterinary Conference, in Orlando, Florida, Joe Gaydos presented on Salmonella in wildlife. About 10% of the Salmonella outbreaks between 2006 and 2013 were caused by wild animals, and most of these were caused by reptiles and amphibians.

Salmonella infection can be prevalent in wild birds, and has been seen in many wild mammal species including white-tailed deer, raccoons, and river otters.

Relatively little is known about Salmonella in free-ranging marine mammals. It has been isolated from harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), a killer whale (Orcinus orca), sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis), northern elephant seals (mirounga angustirostris), California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), Northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus), and harbor seals (Phoca vitulina). Far more isolations have been made than actual documentation of disease. Salmonella Newport-associated septicemia has been documented in a harbor porpoise and a killer whale. Salmonella also has been isolated from marine birds such as Western gulls (Larus occidentalis). While one study found prevalence of Salmonella in 40% of California sea lion pups and 33% of northern fur seal pups on San Miguel Island, the prevalence in most marine wildlife populations is unknown but probably highly variable.

Download a copy of the paper: Salmonella in Wildlife by J. Gaydos

Photo Credit: mikebaird via Compfight cc

Joe Gaydos presents on river otter diseases at veterinary conference

At the 2014 North American Veterinary Conference, held in Orlando, Florida, Joe Gaydos presented a paper on diseases in river otters.

Diseases of River Otters, A Recovering Species. (PDF)

River otters were nearly eliminated over much of their home range, but have made comebacks. They can be found in freshwater habitats ranging from alpine lakes to rivers, streams, and swamps. From California to Alaska they sometimes occupy a nearshore marine habitat, where they play an important ecological role. They depend on fresh water for drinking.

River otters are host to various bacteria, viruses, fungi, and internal and external parasites. Some of these can cause disease in humans and domestic animals.

River otters are also sentinels to evaluate environmental contaminants including heavy metals, hydrocarbons and persistent organic pollutants.

The paper includes findings on successful anesthesia and capture methods.

Photo Credit: Chris Paul Photography via Compfight cc

Sea Star Wasting Disease

Update January 21, 2016

SeaDoc recently spent 2 days at a sea star wasting disease summit hosted by the Seattle Aquarium.

Scientists from all over the US and Canada who are studying this disease came to share their research and learn from each other.

We still have a lot to learn about this disease, but data presented support: (1) this is an unsual mortality event, (2) the disease hits a wide range of sea star species, and (3) it affects different species of sea stars differently. Species that seem have been hit hard both in the wild and in captivity include the mottled star (Evasterias troschelii; pictured here), sunflower star (Pycnopodia heliantoides), spiny pink star (Pisaster brevispinus) and the ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus).

Joe Gaydos notes, "I'm impressed with and inspired by all of the great scientific minds working to unravel this mystery!"

Update November 17 2014

SeaDoc was among dozens of collaborators that recently published a paper linking a virus to sea star wasting disease. The paper showed that a virus was involved in the massive outbreak that, since June 2013, has killed millions of sea stars (including more than 20 different species) along the west coast of North America.Interestingly, the same virus was found in museum specimens of sea stars collected 72 years ago, suggesting that a mutation in the virus (as has been seen with closely related viruses) could have triggered the outbreak.

Work is continuing to better understand the other factors involved in this outbreak and how this massive loss of predators will reshape the marine ecosystem.

Understanding emerging threats to the health of our oceans is a key part of SeaDoc's work, and donations to SeaDoc make it possible.

Read the paper by Ian Hewson, et al.: http://www.seadocsociety.org/?p=2949

Earthfix covered the study, noting that this virus is different from all known viruses infecting marine organisms. (Another little-known fact: a drop of seawater contains about 10 million viruses.)

Read it: Scientists find out what's killing west coast starfish

Smithsonian Magazine also has a good article about the study and what it means.

Update October 2014

The San Juans were largely skipped by the wasting disease outbreak last fall, but this summer they were hit hard. Drew Harvell's lab at Friday Harbor Laboratories did investigations all summer long, and were able to watch as the disease swept across the archipelago. For example, the Eastsound waterfront area experienced approximately 95% wasting disease prevalence. Water temperature appears to play a large role in the disease. Researchers have also worked to identify genetic factors that appear to make it possible for some sea stars to survive the disease.Collaborators Morgan Eisenlord and Drew Harvell recently published a summary of their summer's work on sea star wasting disease in the San Juan Islands in the the Friday Harbor Labs Tide Bites newsletter. http://depts.washington.edu/fhl/tidebites/Vol14/index.html.

The article is well-worth a read, and here's a video from it:

Update June 2014

Scientists are closer to having an answer to what's causing the mortality outbreak in sea stars. Drew Harvell of Cornell University and Friday Harbor Labs is working with a team that has traced the cause.

Read the latest article from KUOW's EarthFix team about the current status of the outbreak. There's also a terrific video on that page featuring Drew Harvell.

Sea stars in various parts of the Salish Sea are experiencing a mass-mortality event. We're not sure of the cause, but we're working on it. (So are many other groups in the area.)

In October we looked for healthy and diseased sea stars during our dives for our new subtidal survey project. (See what else we found on those dives here.) During early November, we returned to two of the REEF monitoring sites from October where we saw the highest density of sea stars to see if sea star wasting disease has shown up since were were there last month. Fortunately we saw numerous sea stars and numerous species of sea stars and they all looked healthy. We will continue dives this weekend to look for more signs of disease.

Photos of diseased sea stars

Seastar expert Neil McDaniel, (www.seastarsofthepacificnorthwest.info) has graciously shared his photos showing the progression of the disease over a short period of a few weeks. This can give you an idea of what you're looking for. The before-and-after photos are pretty shocking. View the photos at Janna Nichols' SCUBA photo page.

Report sick and healthy sea stars

If you're a diver or a beach-walker and you see sea stars (healthy or diseased), report them at the Vancouver Aquarium's Sea Star Wasting Syndrome web page.

That page at the Vancouver Aquarium's website also has an overview of the outbreak.

Also see these media articles:

http://kuow.org/post/mass-starfish-die-may-be-headed-washington

http://www.king5.com/news/environment/Biologists-search-for-cause-of-sea-star-deaths-229408861.html

Vancouver Sun: scientists narrow in on the wasting disease (May 2014)

Video:

The Vancouver Aquarium made a time-lapse video of a sea star disintegrating. Watch it here: http://youtu.be/mjrp3Eckr-E

Audio:

Seattle Aquarium veterinarian Lesanna Lahner was interviewed on Science Friday on NPR on December 5, 2014.

Other items:

The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission posted a blog entry about how the Puyallup Tribe is tracking sea star wastage in the South Sound.

Scientist Drew Harvell and diver Laura James wrote a blog post for the Nature Conservancy about the outbreak. In it, Harvell, who is one of the scientists doing genetic research on possible disease vectors, makes the case for better funding of scientific investigations of disease in the ocean.

Page updated on December 10, 2014

Steller Sea Lions removed from Endangered Species List

October 2013: NOAA Fisheries is removing the eastern Distinct Population Segment of Steller sea lions from the list of threatened species, because it has met its recovery criteria as outlined in the 2008 Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan and no longer meets the definition of a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This makes the eastern population of Steller sea lions the first species NOAA has delisted due to recovery since 1994, when the eastern North Pacific gray whale was taken off the list of threatened and endangered species. Read more: http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/stories/2013/10/10_23_13eastern_steller_sea_lion_delisting.html

KUOW: Mass Starfish Die-Off May Be Headed For Washington

John Ryan of KUOW reported on the efforts in the United States and Canada to understand a starfish die-off.

“Every population has sick animals,” said SeaDoc Society wildlife veterinarian Joe Gaydos, on a boat off Orcas Island between research dives. “Are we just seeing sick animals because we’re looking for it, or is it an early sign of a large epidemic that may come through and wipe out a lot of animals?”

The timing of this news coincided with SeaDoc's first year of monitoring subtidal fish and invertebrates at 10 sites in the San Juan Islands. This project, done in conjunction with REEF and Friday Harbor Labs, is a multi-year study to track understudied populations in the Salish Sea. It's exactly the kind of effort that's needed if we're to have the right data to understand mortality events like these.

Gaydos cautions, "Despite the headline, we're not certain that a mortality event is heading into Washington State. During our 120 dives we saw many more healthy animals than sick ones. We collected samples and they will be tested microscopically and for infectious agents and a parasites."

Read the complete text or listen to the piece as broadcast: http://kuow.org/post/mass-starfish-die-may-be-headed-washington

Also see this article on King5.com featuring the work of the Seattle Aquarium: Biologists search for cause of sea star deaths.

Joe Gaydos was also interviewed for an article on KVAL in Eugene, OR. http://www.kval.com/outdoors/Whats-causing-sea-stars-to-waste-away--232121291.html

Salish Sea Marine Bird Project

Peer-reviewed publication:

Vilchis, L. I. C. K. Johnson, J. R. Evenson, S. F. Pearson, K. L. Barry, P. Davidson, M. G. Raphael, and J. K. Gaydos. 2014. Assessing Ecological Correlates of Marine Bird Declines to Inform Marine Conservation. Conservation Biology. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12378. (Open access publication)

Where have all the birds gone?

The last 30 years have seen precipitous declines in many of the bird species that visit the Salish Sea during the winter.

Using various tools, private money and strategic collaborations, SeaDoc made a substantial investment to understand the problem of declining marine birds. We recently completed research demonstrating that diving birds that eat schooling forage fish are the species most likely to be in decline.

Tackling such a big issue is not easy. Understanding how we worked through this issue gives you a good idea of how SeaDoc can address what might seem to be insurmountable obstacles to healing the Salish Sea. It also shows you how private support makes our work possible.

Step 1: Identify the information gap

In 2005, SeaDoc brought researchers and managers from the US and Canada together to talk about the state of marine bird populations in the Salish Sea. It became clear that we were facing a big problem. Birds were declining in different jurisdictions, but it wasn’t clear how steep the declines were, which species were involved or what factors were behind these declines.

Because no one took a big-picture approach, bird restoration efforts were focused on one species at a time. But was there something going on at the ecosystem level causing multiple species to be declining?

We realized we needed an ecosystem-level look at which species were in decline and why.

Step 2. Get around transboundary roadblocks

Decades worth of data had been collected in Washington and British Columbia by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Audubon, and Bird Studies Canada. But the organizations used different survey techniques and geographic scales so people had not been able to look at the data to get a perspective for the entire ecosystem.

SeaDoc was the ideal group to take on the challenge of merging these differing data sets from two different countries. State, provincial, and federal governments rarely have the time for this kind of effort. Also they have political constraints and pressures that make it hard to see past their borders.

Step 3. Hire a scientist to do the work

Collaborating with multiple groups, merging complex data sets and analyzing decades of data is a full time job for several years. Stephanie Wagner, a woman who loved the Salish Sea and its creatures, made a legacy gift to SeaDoc before she died. This gift provided the funding that allowed us to hire Dr. Nacho Vilchis to lead this important work.

Step 4. Use an epidemiological approach

Dr. Vilchis' first task was to get the data sets to “talk to each other.” WDFW conducts aerial transects from a plane. Bird Studies Canada and Audubon use point counts. Both are good techniques, but they produce surveys that are difficult to compare.

Nacho, who has a background in the statistical manipulations of large data sets, found a way to combine and use the three surveys in one overall analysis. Then he trimmed the set down to just 39 core species, removing the occasional visitors and the birds for which he didn’t have enough data to draw robust conclusions.

He also used GIS maps of the Salish Sea to connect each data point not only to a geographical area but also to major habitat characteristics, such as water depth.

Drawing heavily on the “Doc” part of SeaDoc, we used an epidemiological approach to find a likely diagnosis. Just as the family doc quizzes you for risk factors for diabetes or heart disease, SeaDoc found that two lifestyle factors among seabirds correlated to a very high risk of population decline.

Step 5. Translate results into recovery

The work, published in the internationally-acclaimed peer-reviewed journal Conservation Biology, showed that birds that dive to find food are much more likely (11 times as likely) to be in decline compared to non-divers.

But it’s worse if you’re a diver on a restricted fish diet. Diving birds that focus their efforts on small schooling fishes called forage fish were 16 times as likely to be in decline. Forage fish are small schooling fish that convert plankton into fat and are eaten by other fish, birds and mammals. These include herring, smelt, anchovies, eulachon, sardines, and sand lance.

But publishing a paper is not the end. It actually is just the beginning. This paper is now being used by scientists, managers and policy makers as evidence for the need to recover marine birds. Recovering forage fish will not just benefit birds, however. Because forage fish turn plankton into fat that’s available for other animals, they are a key part of the ecosystem and their recovery will benefit salmon, lingcod, rockfish, harbor porpoise and many other species within the Salish Sea.

Four key factors made this project successful.

1. Good data

Dr. Vilchis could not have conducted this analysis without scientists and citizens having already spent decades collecting rigorous data. The collection of these data took money, persistence, and forethought.

2. Collaboration

From the beginning, this project has been a story of collaboration. From the individuals collecting data over two decades to the senior scientists who worked out a way to share their data, it’s taken the work of many people working in different jurisdictions to make this happen. Our collaborators shared three huge datasets collected on two sides of an international border. They only did so because they were confident that SeaDoc would be able to use the data to produce robust scientific results.

3. Working on the level of the ecosystem, not the politics

This was the first study to look at bird declines across the entire Salish Sea marine ecosystem.

Most Canadian or US maps stop at the border, but the Salish Sea does not. Too often, the mandates and responsibilities of the people who work at the various state, provincial, and federal agencies tasked with keeping wildlife populations healthy also stop at the border.

SeaDoc, being privately supported by people like you who understand how important it is to treat the ecosystem as a whole, works across the entire ecosystem.

4. An extraordinary legacy gift

In the end, one person's financial gift made this project possible.

Without Stephanie Wagner’s legacy gift, this project would have been just a good idea that never got done. Instead, we made it someone’s job to find the truth that was hidden in the data.

Stephanie Wagner’s thoughtful gift enabled us to point clearly to a hidden problem affecting the productivity of the entire Salish Sea ecosystem. With her gift we were able to do good science that will make a difference in how scientists and managers work on healing the Salish Sea.

Put plainly, money can change the world for the better.

Please contact SeaDoc or your financial advisor if you’re interested in including SeaDoc in your will so you can leave a legacy for the health of the Salish Sea.

Bears and Barnacles: The Land - Sea Connection

Videos

Why make a list of all the birds and mammals that depend on the Salish Sea? Joe Gaydos explains. (1:18)

Part 2: Why has this never been done before?

 

In Part 3, Joe talks about:

• the challenges in assembling the list,
• how it can help scientists (including SeaDoc's own Dr. Nacho Vilchis),
• how the list indicates when and how heavily different species use the ecosystem,
• how they tracked down citations for each and every species, and how fox and beaver have been shown to use the intertidal zones.

At about minute 4:30 Joe talks about how the tidal marsh beavers not only use the marine resources, but also contribute to the health of salmon populations. Pretty interesting stuff.

Click to see a picture of a beaver dam in the Skagit River delta.

Get the Checklist

We've created a printable checklist of all the bird and mammal species that depend on the Salish Sea.

Download a copy. 

You can print the checklist on two sides of a single sheet of paper and take it with you on your travels.

Read the scientific paper

Click here to go to the citation page where you can find a link to the scientific paper.

The Photographer

Big thanks to Jim Braswell for sharing his extraordinary images. Please visit Jim's nature photography site at http://www.showmenaturephotography.com where you can see more of his photographs and learn about his photography & photo editing workshops. 

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