2015 was a pilot year for Crab Team monitoring. Here, in a series of two posts, Natalie White, an undergraduate in the UW Program on the Environment Capstone Program, will share the work she did to understand the volunteer experience during our pilot year. In a third post, we’ll fill you in on how we’ve responded to this information, and what we learned by listening.
With the official 2016 program launch upon us, now is a great time to ...
Read MoreJanuary 22, 2016
The Seattle Aquarium recently recognized UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences research scientist Jeffrey Cordell for his innovative work on restoring marine habitat along Seattle’s Elliott Bay seawall at their annual Chairman’s Award dinner.
Jeff led the long-term research, funded by Washington Sea Grant and the City of Seattle to design, install, and monitor large-scale test panels at three locations along the Seattle waterfront as part of the Elliott Bay Seawall Project. Jeff and his team tested the ...
Read MoreJanuary 20, 2016
Governor Jay Inslee announced the second phase of the Washington Shellfish Initiative, a partnership of local, state, and federal partners from government, business, tribes, and nonprofit groups. The Initiative’s efforts to tackle pollution in Puget Sound and coastal waters have successfully led to the reopening of shellfish beds and, through a new shellfish restoration hatchery, native shellfish restoration efforts are growing. Washington’s $184 million shellfish industry supports approximately 2,700 jobs.
Leaders from the partnership convened at the National Fish & ...
Read More
One strength of the Crab Team protocol is that it enables us to confidently compare findings among different sites, and track changes over time – even if different people are doing the sampling. With sampling on this scale, even the small steps can be important to what we learn from the data. The Protocol in Focus will allow us to expand on these details, and offer an opportunity to see all the behind-the-scenes planning that goes into methodology!
Almost every volunteer has had the question: When we measure crab size, ...
Read More
Happy New Year!
While the weather outside the Crab Team offices makes us happy that it is not yet time to start monitoring this year, we are all hard at work getting ready to launch the 2016 monitoring season – starting with this fantastic new website – made possible by Robyn Ricks, Marcus Duke, MaryAnn Wagner, and the communications team at WSG!
Building on the success of 2015
Last year was a very successful pilot year and we are much indebted to our ...
Read MoreNovember 30, 2015
Dr. John A. Knauss, administrator of NOAA from 1989 to 1993 and an instrumental founder of NOAA’s Sea Grant program, died peacefully at the age of 90 on November 19 in Saunderstown, Rhode Island.
Knauss was widely known as an international leader in oceanography and marine policy for more than three decades. As such, the respected and highly successful John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship was created in his name. In 1966, Knauss was instrumental in the formulation of the ...
Read MoreNovember 10, 2015
Meg Chadsey, WSG’s ocean acidifcation specialist, has teamed with scientists at NOAA ‘s Pacific Environmental Laboratory to provide hands-on seawater chemistry monitoring experience for several students from Eagle Harbor (on Bainbridge Island) and Garfield high schools. The students met at the NOAA Sandpoint campus on a recent cold November morning to analyze Puget Sound seawater samples they’d collected as part of their summer field work. The students conducted their first set of tests in a “container lab” — literally a shipping ...
Read MoreOctober 25, 2015
The equipment used to farm geoducks, including PVC pipes and nets, might have a greater impact on the Puget Sound food web than the addition of the clams themselves.
That’s one of the findings of the first major scientific study to examine the broad, long-term ecosystem effects of geoduck aquaculture in Puget Sound, published in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea’s Journal of Marine Science.
The study also found that under one scenario, geoduck farming ...
Read More
Filtration through column of soil and sand eliminates toxic effects of urban stormwater on fish.
October 20, 2015
Toxic runoff from highways, parking lots and other developed surfaces is killing many of the adult coho salmon in urban streams along the West Coast, according to a new study that for the first time documents the fatal connection between urban stormwater and salmon survival.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that the same study published a paper in the ...
Read More
October 15, 2015
This month six new Washington Sea Grant (WSG) Hershman fellows are embarking on one-year fellowships, tackling topics as varied as assessing paddlesports safety in Washington to addressing climate change for the Makah Tribe. Last week WSG hosted a general fellowship orientation for all new fellows, followed by a tour of Fisherman’s Terminal, led by WSG Seafood Industry Specialist Pete Granger and WSG Director Penny Dalton.
The Hershman Fellowship was created in 2005 by WSG Director Dalton, in honor of Marc ...
Read More
The fellowship provides emerging professionals with a unique inside perspective on building marine policy and also allows them opportunities to share their academic expertise. For one year, fellows craft marine and resource policies and are teamed with mentors in state government or non-profit offices around Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle, working on ocean and coastal science or management issues. Many of WSG’s former fellows have gone ...
Read MoreBy Elizabeth Cooney, WSG Communications Fellow, Washington Sea Grant
The unassuming but commercially valuable mussel dominates temperate seas worldwide, clinging to rocks and docks by a cluster of thread-like anchors called the byssus or “the beard.” The byssus’s unique protein matrix gives each thread extraordinary strength, even in salt water. But will byssal threads still hold fast as the seas become ...
Read MoreSeptember 20, 2015
The Puget Sound Marine Waters workgroup of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program released the 4th annual report on marine water conditions in Puget Sound.
The report combines a wealth of data from comprehensive monitoring programs and provides a concise summary of what was happening in Puget Sound’s marine waters during 2014. It covers areas such as climate and weather, river inputs, seawater temperature, salinity, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, ocean acidification, phytoplankton, biotoxins, bacteria and pathogens, shellfish resources, and more.
The report ...
Read MoreJuly 25, 2015
Data show that commercial and recreational boaters spill more oil in Washington waters than tankers. This summer, WSG staff and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary will kick off a summer campaign to give away free small oil spill clean up kits at vessel safety inspections, as part of a focused education and awareness campaign to prevent small oil spills among commercial and recreational boats. The Campaign begins this Thursday and will continue through August with distribution of 1,000 ...
Read MoreJuly 15, 2015
NOAA Summer Camp is in its second week of a full program packed with science and fun for students in grades 6 through 12. One parent, Kelly Powers, recently shared her enthusiasm:
Thank you so much to NOAA for creating the experience for Seattle area kids! It’s life changing. It’s the only camp I’ve come across that puts real science in the hands of middle schoolers. What a legacy your camp creates in two short weeks every ...
Read More