Sand Lance found hiding in existing salmon data

Recently a team of scientists from the Northwest Straits Commission and the SeaDoc Society took a deep dive into decades of data collected by scientists looking for juvenile salmon in the nearshore. But they weren't interested in salmon. Instead, Jamey Selleck, Caroline Gibson, Suzanne Shull and SeaDoc's Joe Gaydos were interested in Pacific Sand Lance, which are often caught by accident during salmon sampling.

They discovered a treasure trove of data about these important fish, which are vital to the ecosystem because they turn plankton into fat for other animals higher up the food web.

Within the salmon data, they analyzed findings from over 15,000 beach seines that captured Sand Lance, spanning 1,630 sites along 320 miles of shoreline.

The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Northwestern Naturalist.

The study showed that while Sand Lance can be found almost everywhere in the Salish Sea, abundance varies during the year.

Here's the abstract:

Pacific Sand Lance (Ammodytes personatus) are energy-rich schooling fish that are thought to be important drivers of marine food webs in Alaska (USA) and British Columbia (Canada). Despite a number of studies characterizing their distribution and habitat use in Alaska and British Columbia, surprisingly little is known about population attributes in the Salish Sea. We compiled and analyzed 15,192 records collected from 1630 sites, primarily by beach seine or tow net in nearshore shallow areas between 1970 and 2009, to determine Sand Lance spatial and seasonal distribution in the inland waters of Washington State. Sand Lance were present along 78% of the shoreline that was sampled and were captured during every month of the year. The maximum number captured in individual nets increased between May and August. Fork length ranged from 1.7 to 19.0 cm and average fork length did not vary by month. The shortest minimum fork lengths were documented during April through July, likely representing annual recruits, but size at maturity is not known for the local population. Their widespread distribution throughout the region and peak abundance during summer suggests that they are an important potential prey source and could be a driver of marine food webs in this region.

Read the full study here. If you are unable to access the publication, send us an e-mail at seadoc@seadocsociety.org.

Canadian / US failure of collaboration puts Salish Sea at risk

“We need to deal with the impacts of new energy projects at the level of the ecosystem, not just project to project," says wildlife veterinarian Dr. Joe Gaydos, lead author of a new paper analyzing the combined threats posed by six fossil fuel transportation projects in the Salish Sea.

The new study by SeaDoc and the Swinomish Tribe was recently published in the international journal PLoS ONE.

What did they find? Canada and the US need to do a better job collaborating on Salish Sea issues.

The study evaluated the threats posed by each project to 50 species that are important to the Coast Salish people. These include endangered humpback and killer whales, and key food species including seaducks, salmon, clams, and Dungeness crabs.

Gaydos says, “When you look at these projects cumulatively, they have a high possibility of affecting the Coast Salish and everybody else. The environmental impact statements aren’t looking at the threats collectively.”

Although the Salish Sea is an integrated ecosystem, it is shared by Washington, British Columbia, and indigenous Coast Salish governments. When US and Canadian governmental bodies evaluate proposed developments, they rarely take into account projects occurring outside of their jurisdictions.

Coast Salish have long looked at the ecosystem as a whole. “We walk as one with our resources, as they are the spirit within us,” said First Nation Summit Co-Chair and Chemainus First Nation member Ray Harris. “Each day is a blessing when we see our scientists and traditional knowledge teachers sharing and incorporating one another’s information. We see the removal of barriers happening all over the Salish Sea, and this respect of one another allows us to take care of this beautiful place we all call home.”

Rectifying the problem

A solution is within reach. Brian Cladoosby, Swinomish Chairman, says, “For more than 150 years, we have lived with the destruction of our resources and environment by a pollution-based economy. It is time for a change, and this can only happen if we work together.”

This study makes it clear that managers need to establish a mechanism for addressing transboundary threats.

Transboundary ecosystems like the Salish Sea, which exist around the world, are vulnerable to cumulative pressures when there is no mechanism for collaborative decision-making.

In the Salish Sea, there is no governing body that requires multiple proposed projects be evaluated for their cumulative impact. As noted in the paper, “This is a failure in coastal ecosystem management that stands to have a direct impact on the Coast Salish and likely on most of the 7 million other people that also depend on this ecosystem.”

Six years ago the Salish Sea was named. It is now time for the governing bodies responsible for the Salish Sea to create an effective system for evaluating threats across the entire ecosystem.

Read the full study at PLoS ONE.

News coverage is here.

For more background, see an article by Lynda Mapes at the Seattle Times, Northwest tribes unite against giant coal, oil projects.

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Banner photo: bulk carrier and killer whales share the Strait of Juan de Fuca southeast of Victoria, British Columbia. Photo courtesy of Jim Maya, Maya’s Images.

New study from Argentina: Gulls are feasting on living whales

The UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center do cutting-edge work all around the world. A recent example from Argentina reveals that Kelp gulls are wounding living Southern right whales at an ever-increasing frequency.

UC Davis Wildlife Veterinarian Dr. Marcela Uhart co-authored the study that tracked wounds on the backs of living and dead southern right whales at their calving grounds in Argentina. The gulls eat skin and blubber from the whales' backs when they surface to breathe. For the gulls this is a high-energy source of food, easily accessible in the winter months.

Since gull attacks were first observed in the 1970s, lesions have increased every decade until they were visible in almost every animal by the 2000s. Over time, the actual number of lesions on individual animals shifted from mothers to calves.

"Mothers, who return to the birthing grounds every three years or so, have learned to protect themselves by resting with their heads and tails up and the rest of their body submerged," said Dr. Uhart. "Calves have not learned this and are at greater risk for attack."

In recent years calf mortality has been unexpectedly high at Peninsula Valdés, which is the only place in the world where this kind of gull harassment of right whales has occurred. But it is not yet clear if or to what extent these attacks are contributing to calf deaths. The study does suggest, however, that the attacks are costing the calves precious energy, as well as causing pain and discomfort.

For calves, avoidance behaviors include swimming faster and surfacing to breathe without exposing their backs. Both of these behaviors mean they are investing more energy in avoidance and less in playing, resting, and nursing. Wound healing also diverts essential resources needed for normal growing and development.

Not mentioned in the paper is the inappropriate handling of fishing and urban waste by regional municipalities and fisheries, which are thought to be responsible for artificially increasing the gull population over the past 45 years.

Want to dive deeper into this issue? View the publication at PLOS ONE (open access).

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Banner photo: kelp gull pecking skin and blubber from southern right whale. Photo courtesy of Mariano Sironi, Instituto de Conservación de Ballenas.

Kirsten Gilardi receives Emil Dolensek Award

Kirsten Gilardi with silverback gorilla. Photo by Sandy Buckley.

At its annual meeting in October 2015, The American Association of Zoo Veterinarians awarded Dr. Kirsten Gilardi the Emil Dolensek Award. Some people have called this "The Nobel Prize in Medicine for Veterinarians," and we couldn't be more proud of Kirsten and her long list of accomplishments that made her so deserving of this award.

Kirsten earned her DVM from UC Davis in 1993 and was a veterinary resident and then veterinary fellow at the California National Primate Research Center. She then was one of the first veterinarians to achieve Board Certification by the American College of Zoological Medicine, with an emphasis on Wildlife Medicine.

Kirsten's work at the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at UC Davis began in 1998 when she was instrumental in laying the foundation for California's now world-famous Oiled Wildlife Care Network. Her work included setting up facilities and helping create a model program for the statewide response to oiled wildlife emergencies.

In 2000, Kirsten took on the role of executive director for the SeaDoc Society, shaping the vision for what has evolved into a unique marine ecosystem health program. In just 15 years, this organization has become a key player in marine conservation in the Salish Sea, filling a glaring gap in the environmental sector – caring for the health of the wild animals, from shellfish to killer whales.

Since 2009, Kirsten has been the Co-Director of Gorilla Doctors, which is a partnership between UC Davis and the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project. Gorilla Doctors' efforts ensure the long-term health and survival of critically endangered wild eastern gorillas and the human and animal communities that share their habitat. The 15 Gorilla Doctors on the ground in Africa, all but one of whom are African veterinarians, monitor the health of and provide life saving treatment for injured and ill eastern gorillas living in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The team works hard to conserve eastern gorillas one gorilla at a time, and has become an international model of One Health in action.

Under Kirsten's leadership, Gorilla Doctors also manages the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threat PREDICT program in Uganda and Rwanda, through which laboratory capacity in both countries has been vastly improved, and a number of newly discovered viruses have been described.

As an offshoot of her work at SeaDoc, Kirsten founded and has led a program to remove derelict fishing gear, which entangles and injures crabs, birds, and whales, from the west coast of the United States. In the crab fishing fleet, this program is on its way to become a self-sustaining program run by the fishermen themselves.

In addition to all these activities, Kirsten is a researcher, teacher and mentor.

In 2014 she was named Co-Director of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, where she leads a large team dedicated to solving wildlife and conservation problems using a One Health perspective.

Kirsten has had a truly positive impact on wildlife around the world, and we're proud of her recognition by the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians.

Fishes of the Salish Sea

Dragons and Vipers and Opahs, Oh My!

Sailfin sculpin by Joseph R. Tomelleri

The Salish Sea's famed salmon have a lot of interesting company beneath the surface. From the gumdrop-size spiny lumpsucker to the world's second-largest fish, the basking shark, we've long known our inland sea was home to an amazing range of fish species. However, it wasn't until an exhaustive new SeaDoc-funded study set out to document every species of local fish that we fully understood the diversity of these rich waters.

The study, by Ted Pietsch and Jay Orr, revealed more than three dozen fish species not previously known to inhabit the Salish Sea, adding such notables as the leopard shark, Pacific hagfish and lowcrest hatchetfish, and raising the number of local fish species to 253. Another "new" native, the opah, is a freckled orbicular oddity and one of the only known warm-blooded fish.

Beyond the wonder of knowing we share our Salish Sea with the opah and other fantastical creatures like the ribbonfish and daggertooth, and that our abyssal depths twinkle with such bioluminescent stars as the flashlight fish and viperfish, we now have a definitive list that allows us to more accurately choose which fishes best serve as indicator species — the canaries in the aquatic coal mine — to track the health of the entire ecosystem. It will also tell us when invasive species invade, and if any native fishes disappear.

This important paper proves once again that when it comes to restoring the Salish Sea, good science and SeaDoc donors really count.

Download the paper

Fishes of the Salish Sea is an open-access publication of NOAA, available for download from the SeaDoc website or from the NOAA website.

The PDF includes about a dozen incredible drawings of local fish.

More details about the study

This study is part of a long-term effort by SeaDoc to document the fish and wildlife that inhabit the Salish Sea.

In 2011, Joe Gaydos and Scott Pearson published "Birds and Mammals that Depend on the Salish Sea: A Compilation" in Northwestern Naturalist. That paper established a baseline list of species, and has been cited numerous times in both peer-reviewed and technical papers.

Now we have a complete list of fishes. At some point we hope to take on the daunting task of cataloging the 3,000+ species of macro-invertebrates.

Knowing which species use an ecosystem and how they make their living is fundamental to restoring it.

Why is this so important? With this list, scientists will be able to document the occurrence of new species and the disappearance of existing ones. The list will be a key baseline for Salish Sea recovery. At the same time it will help scientists select particular species as indicators of ecosystem health, and it will provide a basis for identifying the mechanisms responsible for marine fish declines.

Funded by private citizens

Like many SeaDoc projects, this one was funded by individuals with a commitment to the health of the Salish Sea. Thanks to our forward-thinking donors for understanding the importance of this effort and making it possible.

Blacktail snailfish by Joseph R. Tomelleri

News coverage

The fish list has been featured in the Seattle Times, Victoria Times Colonist, Skagit Valley Herald, phys.org, Science Daily, The Stranger, the Parksville Qualicum Beach News, the Fish Site, Nature World News, and the Vancouver Sun, among others.

SeaDoc/REEF subtidal monitoring project 2015

Are the sea stars coming back? That's the question most people ask when they learn that SeaDoc just completed another 100 survey dives in our multi-year collaboration with REEF.

Video of diver doing survey (10 seconds)

Each fall, trained citizen scientist SCUBA divers conduct 100 surveys of fish and invertebrates at locations throughout the San Juan Islands. The results are almost immediately accessible on the national REEF database. For example, here's a link to species sighted at Bell Island West between 2013 and 2015 on the REEF.org website. REEF's database is used by citizens and scientists the world over.

Video of rockfish observed during dive (10 seconds)

While we just completed this year's series of dives, and the data hasn't been analyzed yet, we can tell you a few things:

• Divers look for 4 different species of sea stars. They saw healthy specimens of vermillion, blood, and leather stars.
• They saw no sunflower sea stars. Before the sea star die-off it would have been typical to see 20-30 sunflower sea stars on a single survey dive.
• Divers observed many beautiful fish and invertebrates, some of which are pictured below.
• This is a long-term project, and the real payoff will come after many more years of surveys.

This project is made possible thanks to collaborations with REEF, numerous volunteer divers and of course the SeaDoc donors who got the program started, including Jeanne Luce, Steve Alboucq, Loren Ceder, Chuck Curry & Molly Davenport, Martha Wyckoff in honor of Lee Rolfe, and one other anonymous donor. Major support for this year's dives came from the Seattle Aquarium. Thank you!

This year's divers include Laurel LaFever, Janna Nichols, David Todd, Joe Gaydos, Todd Cliff, Carol Cline, Gregg Cline, Josh Sera, Rhoda Green, Margaret Bangs, Randall Tyle, Taylor Frierson, Chuck Curry, Phil Green, and Jen Olson. And special thanks to Friday Harbor Labs for housing the volunteer divers and to Bandito Charters for doing such a great job of running the charter boat.

White lined dirona

Leather sea star

Decorator crab in invasive sargassum

Strawberry anemones

Ling cod with red urchins

Copper rockfish

Can you spot it?

Northern abalone

Puget Sound king crab with diver’s finger

California sea cucumber

All photos by J. Gaydos.

Wooden hats for harbor seals?

Hat tag on harbor seal pup. Photo by L. Zatorski Clarke

Each summer SeaDoc and The Whale Museum hire interns to help out with the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Part of their job is to check out abandoned harbor seal pups to see if they need to be taken into rehabilitation. We want to know if a particular pup has been seen before and if it has moved. Simple hat tags allow the seals to be identified from a distance. In the past, the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network has used standard plastic hat tags similar to those that are used on seals around the world. But what happens when these plastic tags fall off as the animal molts? Yes, that’s right: they become just one more piece of plastic marine debris.

This summer SeaDoc / Stranding Network intern Lauren Zatorski Clarke, an Oregon State University veterinary student, collaborated with the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA, to come up with a more environmentally-friendly way of tagging harbor seal pups.

Lauren engineered a replacement out of cedar. The blocks are cut, then sanded to remove sharp edges and the bottoms are scored to help them adhere to the pups’ fur when glued on.

Cedar hat tags showing inset lettering and scoring pattern on bottom

Preliminary field tests and tests on tagged animals in rehabilitation at Wolf Hollow showed that the tags stayed on the seal's heads and the lettering, done with a combination of engraving and a laundry marker, persisted and allowed identification at a distance.

When the pups molt next year, the tags will fall off. And because they are made from cedar, they will degrade naturally.

The information we get from re-sighting stranded and rehabilitated seals helps us understand harbor seal stranding patterns and rehabilitation success.

If you see a tagged seal in the water our on land, please report it to the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network (1-800-562-8832) and include the identifying letter and number in your message. Just remember to stay 100 yards away and use your binoculars. Thanks for your help!

The San Juan Islander covered our change from plastic hat tags to wooden hat tags for baby harbor seals.

Searching for young of the year rockfish

When you have fish that can live from 80 to 200 years, depending on the species, recovery can be a slow process.

That’s the case with some of the 27 different rockfish (Sebastes spp.) in the Salish Sea. Many species were over-harvested and are now in need of recovery.

One important strategy is protecting the old females who produce copious young. But rockfish don't birth a big crop of babies every year. (Yes, rockfish give birth to live baby fish.) Instead they seem to have periodic "bonus" years when numerous rockfish babies are born. As a result, it is really important to know when these massive birth years of young rockfish occur and understand the type of habitats those juvenile fish need to survive.

SeaDoc is working with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, REEF, and others to help NOAA design a citizen-driven project where SCUBA divers can collect data to help us learn more about newborn rockfish, known as "young of the year."

Last month, NOAA project lead Dr. Adam Obaza came up to the San Juans to dive with SeaDoc to test out the new dive protocol. Joe Gaydos, Dr. Obaza, and Jen Olson dove in kelp forests, eelgrass, flat muddy bottom sites and rocky reef sites to look for young rockfish and test out the survey methodology.

Jen Olson, Dr. Adam Obaza & Dr. Joe Gaydos

Young rockfish are rare, but we did manage to find one young of the year rockfish - a baby Copper rockfish hanging out in some Laminaria sp. kelp near a rocky shore. As things are with science sometimes, it was in the last few minutes of the last dive of the weekend.

We will keep you posted as NOAA rolls out this volunteer SCUBA opportunity in case you or friends want to be involved.

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Banner photo: young of the year Copper rockfish (less than 5cm). Courtesy of Janna Nichols.

SCUBA Divers: help us understand the economic impact of recreational diving in Washington State

The SeaDoc Society is interested in better understanding the values and perspectives of SCUBA in Washington State and the economic impacts it provides.

While diving conditions may not resemble those of the tropics, Washington State provides some of the most spectacular diving in the United States. The flora and fauna and seafloor topography of this area are sensational.

However, there is little, if any, information regarding the economic impacts that this recreational sector provides the state of Washington.

This survey is designed to ask pertinent questions needed to characterize the role of SCUBA in Puget Sound to the Washington State economy.

The information generated from this survey will help inform effective coastal and marine resource management and policy decision making. For purposes of this survey, the area of interest is the inland waters of Washington State from Cape Flattery to Olympia including the San Juan Islands, Point Roberts and associated waters.

Information is requested for the year 2014. If you dove in Puget Sound in 2014, please consider filling out the survey.

This work is funded by private donations to the SeaDoc Society.

SeaDoc presents to Federal Marine Protected Areas Committee

On June 3, 2015, in Tacoma, Washington, SeaDoc Society Board Chair Dr. Leslie Dierauf shared the mission, goals, and achievements of SeaDoc’s Salish Sea program with the U. S. Federal Advisory Committee on Marine Protected Areas at its annual meeting. Comprised of citizens with diverse marine environmental expertise from private and public sectors, the 20-person advisory committee was chartered by presidential Executive Order in 2000 to advise the Secretaries of Interior and Commerce on issues concerning a national system of marine protected areas and other matters relating to place-based ocean stewardship.

The committee’s current charge includes providing advice on ecological connectivity and on sustainable external funding opportunities.

The SeaDoc Society’s experiences provided models of both private funding and of translating ecological science on connectivity into private and public policies.

Improving ocean health is a team endeavor. No single organization, agency, or even nation can effectively ensure ocean health alone. Nevertheless, small groups of dedicated people working cooperatively can positively influence conditions for ocean wildlife and improve efforts to sustain healthy oceans.

WA State voter Initiative No. 1401

We at SeaDoc have spent some time studying Washington State's proposed voter Initiative, Measure No. 1401. This Initiative is designed to increase Washington State's capacity to prosecute people for the intrastate trafficking of endangered species parts. There is already a federal mechanism for doing this, but this Initiative is proposed to strengthen our State's ability to address this issue.

SeaDoc took the time to look at this proposed voter Initiative (signatures are currently being collected to put it on the fall ballot) because multiple species of marine turtles, sharks and rays are included and we thought the SeaDoc family might have questions about the science backing the Initiative.

Like the elephant and rhinoceros, marine turtles, sharks and rays are species that are also being illegally harvested. Their illegal harvest and trafficking are playing a large role in the decimation of these populations. SeaDoc is not an advocacy group, nor do we lobby or take positions on policies, but we want you to know that from a scientific perspective, this Initiative works to address a real threat to marine turtles, sharks and rays. Species included are those that are currently listed in Appendix I or II of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) or are listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable on the IUCN Red list of threatened species. While probably variable in degree of importance depending on the species, the illegal capture of these animals and sale of their parts for jewelry, food (like shark fin soup), or perceived medicinal purposes is a real threat to the long-term viability of their populations.

One local example of an affected species is the Basking shark. These magnificent plankton-eating sharks were once common in the Salish Sea, but were tragically extirpated by a targeted fishery. Recovery has been slow. On the international market, by-catch has been a problem for Basking sharks, but shark finning also has hindered recovery, especially when large "trophy fins" can command as much as $57,000 US (Clark, S., 2004, TRAFFIC, East Asia).

Click this link to read the entire initiative.

For more information on this Initiative, please see the following websites:

• Washington Rare Species Trafficking Measure, Initiative 1401 (2015), Ballotpedia
• Seattle Times: Paul Allen backs state ban on rare species trafficking
• Save Animals Facing Extinction website

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Banner photo: Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). Courtesy of Alastair Rae via Flickr CC.

Tracking "Leo Henderson," a Steller sea lion pup

What do we learn from stranded marine mammals - and from tracking them after they are rehabilitated and released? In short, a lot!

Over the past few months, SeaDoc partnered with multiple other organizations to help a young Steller sea lion pup that stranded off the coast of Washington State. The effort has required complicated decisions about how to best provide care and release the animal back into the wild.

Steller sea lion pups nurse for about a year and have been known to stay with their mothers for up to three years. This pup stranded at about 4 months old.

It was initially recovered in October of 2014 by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Marine Mammal Investigations unit and was then transferred to PAWS Wildlife Center in Lynnwood, WA for stabilization, treatment, and care.

The pup was nicknamed "Henderson" after the Ocean Shores police officer that responded to the pup on the beach.

Due to the long length of rehabilitation needed for this animal to reach weaning age and the need to provide conspecifics during rehabilitation, the animal was moved from PAWS to The Marine Mammal Center (TMMC) in Sausalito, CA.

In partnership with the United States Coast Guard the pup was flown from Seattle, WA on a C-130 training flight to Sacramento, CA on November 13, 2014. The Marine Mammal Center staff called him "Leo" (as the name "Henderson" was already in use by another patient) as they continued his care and rehabilitation.

The Marine Mammal Center outfitted Leo with a satellite tag and in mid-April WDFW staff released Leo Henderson on the outer coast of Washington State. SeaDoc is funding the satellite time to track him post-release. The goal is to monitor his activity and learn about how rehabilitated pups survive along the outer coast of Washington. The tracking is a joint project of NOAA, WDFW, PAWS, TMMC, SeaDoc, and SeaTurtle.org. Check out his travels to date.

You can sign up for free daily email updates on his location from SeaTurtle.org - it's pretty fun to watch his movements.

Regarding the map (per the seaturtle.org website):

• The presentation of data here does not constitute publication. All data remain copyright of the project partners. Maps or data on this website may not be used or referenced without the explicit written consent of the data owners.
• For more information please visit the project website.
• This map connects positions generated by the ARGOS system designated as location class (lc) '4', '3', '2', '1'. Locations that have been "filtered" are displayed as small red dots.
• This maps also shows locations of class '0', 'A', 'B', 'Z', 'X' as small black dots which are not connected by a route line.
• Bathymetry layers are derived from the GEBCO One Minute Grid.
• Sea surface temperature and chlorophyll are derived from NASA's Ocean Color data.
• Ocean currents and sea surface heights are derived from AVISO's Ssalto/Duacs Gridded Absolute Dynamic Topography & absolute geostrophic velocities data.

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Banner photo: Leo Henderson makes a dash for the water. Photo courtesy of Robin Lindsey.

GiveBIG to SeaDoc on May 5

You're awesome! Thanks for jumping in to the biggest one-day giving event in the Pacific Northwest and making a BIG impact on the health of the Salish Sea! On Tuesday, May 5 (and not before!) make a secure donation to the SeaDoc Society.

Your donation will be stretched by the partial challenge match from The Seattle Foundation. Plus every donation has a chance to be one of 5 Golden Tickets, which earns you a cool gift card and automatically earns SeaDoc an extra $1000, donated by the Seattle Foundation.

Thank you!

SeaDoc killer whale stranding research referenced for Northern California stranding

In April 2015 a dead male orca stranded near Fort Bragg, California. In an article about the stranding, the Lost Coast Outpost referred to the rarity of finding dead orcas. "A 2013 study analyzing North Pacific killer-whale strandings back to 1925 noted that, "while orcas are some of the most widely distributed whales on Earth, very few dead ones are ever found." That 2013 study is our Spatial and temporal analysis of killer whale (Orcinus orca) strandings in the North Pacific Ocean and the benefits of a coordinated stranding response protocol, published in Marine Mammal Science.

Here's the article at Lost Coast Outpost.

The orca was found with derelict crab gear wrapped around its tail.

SeaDoc helps Coast Salish Tribes and First Nations study multiple impacts of energy projects

People talk about a new coal terminal. Others about a new pipeline. Some worry about increased shipment of crude oil by rail. But what’s the cumulative impact of all the energy projects being proposed for the Salish Sea? That’s the question that was addressed at a recent meeting of the Coast Salish Gathering, where SeaDoc scientist Joe Gaydos and Swinomish Tribal biologist Jamie Donatuto discussed a study they undertook last year.

Between coal terminals, oil pipeline terminals, liquefied natural gas terminals, and the increased shipment of coal and Bakken shale oil by train, there are at least 6 major energy transportation projects proposed, some in Canada and others in the United States.

Last summer, the Coast Salish Tribes asked SeaDoc investigate this issue. Joe, Jamie and SeaDoc summer intern Sofie Thixton evaluated how these energy projects will impact Coast Salish Tribes and First Nations. Impacts from each of the proposed or on-going projects included oil spills from vessels, increased underwater noise, vessel strikes to animals, shoreline development, pipeline spills, etc. For each of these potential impacts, they evaluated the potential effect on a multitude of species that are important to the Coast Salish.

This work was unique because it looks at all projects simultaneously, whereas most projects evaluating impact only look at one project at a time. The Coast Salish have always seen the Salish Sea as a single ecosystem and this study does too.

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Image by SeaDoc.

Lost Gear short film features SeaDoc work to recover commercial crab traps

Lost Gear from TruthBeTold on Vimeo.

This short film features a surfer, a commercial crab fisherman, and a sustainable seafood restaurant owner. The commercial crabbing section features work by SeaDoc's Kirsten Gilardi and Jen Renzullo to set up a sustainable commercial crab pot recovery program off the coast of Northern California.

SeaDoc helps complete necropsy of J32, Rhapsody

Closeup of killer whale teeth by J. Gaydos

Since publishing the first comprehensive paper on diseases of killer whales in 2004, SeaDoc has worked with collaborators to learn more about diseases of killer whales and how they might impact recovery of the endangered southern resident population. Last week, that tradition continued. SeaDoc's Joe Gaydos, working with scientists from NOAA, UC Santa Cruz and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, completed the necropsy of beloved southern resident J32, known to killer whale enthusiasts as Rhapsody. In December, J32 was found dead near Comox, British Columbia. Led by Dr. Steve Raverty of UBC, researchers from 8 different organizations, including Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, First Nations and the Vancouver Aquarium conducted a necropsy on the beach. They found she was pregnant with a near term fetus that had died. J32 was unable to expel the fetus and became sick and died. The head was sent to the United States for more extensive diagnostics.

While examining the head last week, Gaydos and Dyanna Lambourn of WDFW found roundworm parasites in and around the ears. While these were not associated with the stranding, it does add to our understanding of killer whale health. The ears were dissected out for CT scan at the VCA Veterinary Specialty Center of Seattle where preliminary evaluation showed nothing significant. During the necropsy, scientists from NOAA took samples to try to better understand how killer whales use the muscles in their heads to create sound. When all testing is completed, a final necropsy report will be prepared.

Rob Williams named as 2015 PEW Marine Fellow

Canadian scientist Dr. Rob Williams, a past SeaDoc-funded scientist, has been named as a 2015 Pew Marine Fellow. Williams is a marine conservation scientist with the Oceans Initiative and Oceans Research & Conservation Association. The prestigious award will support Williams' effort to identify solutions to reduce ocean noise in important marine habitats. Evidence shows that ocean noise caused by people is doubling every decade, and the effects of this increased noise on sea creatures are not well understood.

Learn more about Rob's work on ocean noise.

Williams is one of five distinguished scientists and conservationists from Canada, Australia, Russia, and the United Kingdom to be named a 2015 recipient of the Pew fellowship in marine conservation. For more on the Pew marine fellows, visit their website.

The SeaDoc Society funded Dr. Williams' study to determine if the accidental capture of porpoise and dolphins by commercial fishermen in British Columbia was impacting the health of these populations. Williams was also a co-investigator on a SeaDoc-funded study by Dr. Erin Ashe to use photo identification to study the population dynamics of Pacific white-sided dolphins.

Here's a video from Pew about Rob's work:

National Geographic features SeaDoc work on birds and forage fish

Often overlooked, forage fish are a key part of the food web, and they’re vital to the well-being of threatened and endangered birds, fish, and marine mammals. A recent National Geographic article by Craig Welch puts a spotlight on the controversy over herring harvest, and references SeaDoc’s important paper in Conservation Biology that showed that diving seabirds that eat exclusively forage fish are 16 times more likely to be in decline than bird species with wider diets.

Read the article at the National Geographic website.

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Banner photo: Herring (not Pacific herring). Courtesy of Jacob Botter via Flickr. Creative Commons 2.0.

Board member Dr. Deborah Brosnan inducted into Irish Education 100

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!