The premiere conference on the science of the Salish Sea.
Check out the program schedule for the three-day virtual conference Apr. 16, 27, 28. Registration deadline April 20.
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference schedule
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Science on the 2013 Pacific Ocean heatwave.
The marine heatwave that struck the Pacific Ocean in late 2013 also caused large changes in temperature in the Salish Sea, but scientists are still puzzling over the impacts of those changes on Puget Sound’s food web. The so-called “blob” of warmer than average water was thought to have increased the production of plankton, which potentially benefits creatures like herring and salmon that feed on the tiny organisms. A new paper in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science calls that interpretation into question pointing to a computer model that links the cause to higher than normal river flows in the region. Eric Wagner reports. (Salish Sea Currents Magazine)
https://www.eopugetsound.org/magazine/salish-sea-model-the-blob
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Climate Change, Environmental Science | Comments Off on Model of heatwave ‘blob’ shows unexpected effects in the Salish Sea – Salish Sea Currents
NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries announced the appointment of Kevin Grant of Port Angeles, Washington, as superintendent of Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS). Kevin has been with NOAA for nearly 14 years as a deputy superintendent, with more than nine years at OCNMS and four years at National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa.
Kevin has a Masters Degree in Marine Affairs from the University of Washington, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Wisconsin. He was a Knauss Sea Grant Fellow at the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, and served two years in the Peace Corps in the Solomon Islands. Nearly all of his experience since leaving graduate school has involved collaboration in resource management with indigenous communities.
Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, with offices in Port Angeles, Washington, is managed by NOAA and was designated in 1994. It encompasses nearly 3,200 square miles off the Washington coast, extending from Cape Flattery to the mouth of the Copalis River. Significant natural and cultural resources include 29 species of marine mammals, as well as large populations of nesting seabirds, shipwrecks, and some of the last remaining wilderness coastline in the lower 48 states.
The sanctuary is part of America’s National Marine Sanctuary System, a network of underwater areas encompassing more than 620,000 square miles of marine and Great Lakes waters. The network includes a system of 15 national marine sanctuaries and Papahānaumokuākea and Rose Atoll marine national monuments. The National Marine Sanctuary System is celebrating its 50 year anniversary in 2022.
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Government, Olympic Peninsula | Tagged: Kevin Grant, Marine Sanctuary, NOAA, Olympic Coast | Comments Off on Kevin Grant named superintendent of Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
Not great news for those hoping to protect our oceans from the ravages of humankind. Sixth consecutive year. Whatever can be done to slow this must. While we are a small island of calm in the midst of this, nevertheless we cannot escape it. Forest fires, smoke, heat waves like last summer, acidifying oceans affecting sea food output etc. are all ahead.
“Last year saw a heat record for the top 2,000 meters of all oceans around the world, despite an ongoing La Niña event, a periodic climatic feature that cools waters in the Pacific. The 2021 record tops a stretch of modern record-keeping that goes back to 1955. The second hottest year for oceans was 2020, while the third hottest was 2019.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/11/oceans-hottest-temperatures-research-climate-crisis
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Climate Change, Environmental Science, Global Warming | Comments Off on Hottest ocean temperatures in history recorded last year – The Guardian
Here’s an update on the work at Ediz Hook in Port Angeles by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. They have been removing debris from the shore and planting eel grass to renew the nearshore habitat for fish and other species.
Below the surface, the tribe and partners Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Washington Sea Grant have been restoring eelgrass beds on the sand spit’s south shore for the past four years, with greater success than expected
Northwest Treaty Tribes January 2022
Read the whole story here. https://nwtreatytribes.org/publications/magazine/
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Around the Sound, Clallam County, Endangered Species, Environmental Protection, First Nations, fisheries, Olympic Peninsula, Port Angeles | Comments Off on Ediz Hook enhanced for salmon, public use – NWTTM
Reports in from Pacific Whale Watch Association that whale sightings were up was reported in The Canadian press, (CBC), as good news. It is, in totality of sightings for Biggs and humpbacks. But if you read the details, you find that Southern Resident Orcas sightings are actually down. Let’s take what we can of the positive but not be fooled into thinking we have turned around the issue of local residents. As mentioned in the article, the Biggs eat seals and sea lions, which have been overpopulating the area and eating vast amounts of food that competes with the resident southerns. (another way to think of this is that because we have depleted the salmon runs there are fewer fish to feed all the mammals that eat them). This may help balance out the food chain, but we won’t know for a number of years.
… it’s a different story for the endangered Southern Resident whales — the other principal killer whale found in the region — as their sightings dropped to a record low last year. The salmon-eating mammals were documented on just 103 days, or 28 per cent of the year.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/record-whale-sightings-2021-1.6311282
Read the whole story here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/record-whale-sightings-2021-1.6311282
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Endangered Species, Sea Life | Tagged: biggs whale, humpback, orcas | Comments Off on Good news, bad news for whale sightings in 2021
Over the last decade science done at the UW has identified a chemical in our tires that leaches out as we drive and ends up killing salmon when it runs off into the lakes, rivers and bays of Puget Sound. This issue will require billions of dollars to fix, just as the culvert problem, created over the last 100 years of road building has done. But it must be done if we are to save coho in our waters.
This article, in the Northwest Treaty Tribes magazine does a good job of updating us on the issue and what is being done about it now.
We need to deal with these impacts immediately by filtering 6PPD-Q from
Northwest Treaty Tribes Magazine -2022 January
stormwater before it enters the water. The Nisqually Tribe is working with McIntyre, Long Live the Kings and the state Department of Transportation to develop a compostable biofiltration system on
Highway 7 where it crosses Ohop Creek. If we are successful, similar systems could be retrofitted along all roadways to remove this lethal, toxic chemical.
Read the whole story here: https://nwtreatytribes.org/publications/magazine/
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Around the Sound, Endangered Species, Environmental Protection, Environmental Science | Comments Off on How do we stop tire debris from killing coho? NWTTM
In a grand “Climate Change” welcome to 2022 King tides moved into the Salish Sea along with a major storm front. The outcome was widespread destruction across a huge swath of the shorelines, from the South Sound up through British Columbia. This is just a taste of what’s ahead, as we await the break off of a huge glacier in Antarctica, and it’s subsequent melt down, which will add to sea level rise. If you have a home or business on the shoreline, now is a good time to reconsider your long term options.
Let’s do a quick overview. If there is only one thing to see, watch this video that was posted by a homeowner from Blaine on Twitter.
And KUOW coverage opens with a scary photo of a neighborhood built on the “wrong side of the tracks”.
KUOW – Sea level on steroids: Record tides flood Washington coastlines
The CBC covered the British Columbia story.
This does not even begin to cover the amount of businesses that have docks that may have been destroyed, nor the simple flooding that may have occurred.
I have watched with disbelief over the last decades as more and more luxury homes have been built on spits in Puget Sound. Some examples? Three Tree Point in South King County. A more recent one in is Miller Bay near Indianola. Let’s look! These houses are really expensive and right at sea level!
Or how about our own Beckett Point in Jefferson County?
Beckett Point is no stranger to flooding. It was wiped out in the 1930s by a massive wind storm. Back then it was just fishing shacks but those were replaced by homes. Bottom line, these people are living on a sandspit, at sea level, and likely their home owners insurance is provided by the Federal Government because there is no way they could afford to pay for private insurance, even if it’s available. Choosing to live here, while incredibly beautiful and usually no problem, is and will continue to be challenging.
Want to add your own and track more vulnerable communities on the Sound? Go to my little project on Google Earth. https://earth.google.com/earth/d/1ZiX9tu1nnWs16-Lwnm4CORazbgPMJJ5H?usp=sharing
It is worth remembering that these homeowners get federal insurance to live here, so our tax dollars go to help continue this behavior. Please make sure that you let our elected officials know that with rising costs due to sea level rise, we cannot continue to subsidize everyone who lives on the shore. Now is the time to end this practice and let these homeowners bear the full cost of their decision (and it is also the decision of the local land use officials and county officials).
I’ve left out the massive flooding all over western Washington and British Columbia in the last 60 days, along with wildfires in December in Colorado, and massive super tornadoes in Kentucky (can you picture a tornado 250 miles long? with winds of 94 MPH sustained over four hours and 24 minutes?). Global warming is upon us and our best situation is to begin making changes to issues like insurance and infrastructure to mitigate the worse that is yet to come in future decades.
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Climate Change, Global Warming, Jefferson County | Tagged: Beckett Point, king tide, sea level rise | 1 Comment »
A good wrap up of the Northwest climate change in 2021. The photo in the article is a great example of what a flood plain is and why so many restoration projects (i.e. the Dungeness) are working to recover old flood plains. So many of them were used for farming (as in the Nooksack pictured) or just putting in housing, like on the Dungeness. Building dykes is a long term failure strategy for salmon and the people trying to live on the flood plain. As shown, the dykes just won’t protect you from climate change as we are seeing it unfold.
From heat domes to record-breaking rainfall, climate change was hard to ignore in Washington.As temperature records were shattered around the state in late June, the 911 calls poured in.
https://kuow.org/stories/climate-change-was-hard-to-ignore-for-the-northwest-in-2021
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The venerable professor from the U.W.is still hard at work promoting the science of old growth and second growth forests. Don’t know who he is? Follow the link below to the summary article and then follow the links in the article to read his writings.
Franklin was among the first to discover the unique ecological value of old-growth trees and forest ecosystems. He also was among a team of scientists whose work led to the protection of old growth on federal land in Washington, Oregon and Northern California through the implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994.
https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/postscripts-2021-jerry-franklin-is-still-standing-up-and-speaking-out-for-our-old-growth-forests/
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Perhaps good news for the herring stocks in B.C. as the Canadian government closes the fisheries. Herring stocks in B.C. have been in trouble for years, following mismanagement by the Federal Government, habitat destruction and over-fishing. As the article states, Indigenous Tribes on the west coast seem to be supporting this, as they have been warning about the collapse for years.
Most commercial fisheries for Pacific herring on the West Coast have been closed with the exception of harvests by First Nations for food and ceremonial purposes. Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray says in a statement that this “cautious” approach to Pacific herring management is based on recently intensified risks to wild salmon. Pacific herring are an important food source for salmon, sea birds, marine mammals and other fish. (Canadian Press)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/pacific-herring-fisheries-closure-1.6289030
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Endangered Species, First Nations, fisheries, fishing | Tagged: british columbia, Canada, Pacific Herring | Comments Off on Canadian Federal government announces closure of most Pacific herring fisheries | CBC News
The recent discovery of a huge increase in invasive green crabs on the Lummi tidelands has not been seen in waters here. A good update by Sea Grant. Wendy Feltham who has been volunteering locally had this to say: “I’ve been part of a small team looking for the invasive European Green Crab at Kala Point Lagoon for the past six years. In all those years we’ve handled thousands of shore crabs and a few others, but only one European Green Crab.”
Here’s the report from the Lummi. The link is at the bottom of the quote.
December 6, 2021
The recent report by the Lummi Nation of more than 70,000 European green crabs captured this year has many wondering what this could mean for efforts to prevent green crabs from establishing in the Salish Sea. This number certainly indicates that the population of green crabs within the sea pond on the Lummi Reservation has grown exponentially since their first detection in 2019 (Mueller and Jefferson, 2019), and currently represents the largest population along inland Washington shorelines. The disaster declaration made by the Lummi Indian Business Council, highlights both the threat to tribal resources, and the need for increased control measures to effectively protect both the reservation, as well as the region, from accelerated spread and impacts of the invasion.
https://wsg.washington.edu/21-lummi-update/
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, invasive species | Tagged: Hood Canal, Kala Point, lummi | Comments Off on European green crab invasion report. Lummi’s in trouble, still ok here
While this story is not specifically about the Peninsula, it is about issues that we faced along with the Bellingham and B.C. environment in the last month. Our rivers flooded also, just not quite as bad. As we all know, the salmon of this region are on the brink of extinction, along with our Orcas. Every year our human induced climate brings 500 year floods to already destroyed ecosystems the fish become more threatened. The Salish Sea is an ecosystem itself, what is happening to the east and north of us is tied to us by the water.
When a month’s worth of rain hit northern Washington and southern British Columbia in just a couple of days in mid-November, the resulting extreme flows scoured streams and riverbeds. They flushed away gravel and the salmon eggs incubating just below the surface, likely by the millions.
KUOW
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Global Warming | Tagged: climate change, flooding, Salmon | Comments Off on Northern Washington Tribes fear devastation of salmon by extreme floodwaters – KUOW
Just this week I was in an online discussion with a noted wildlife journalist here on the Peninsula who wanted to blame a series of environmental horrors he had recently seen on a certain restoration project, because the project was close to the area he was viewing. I tried to explain that the last few years had seen a variety of shocks to our ecosystem, and what he was seeing was far more widespread than just the area in question. Fish kills, algae blooms, massive die offs of shellfish, are easily observed but hard to map to a single root cause. But today in my inbox was this story and so I share it to help all of us understand that what is happening is anything but a local issue. The effects are widespread and causing destruction across an enormous range of wildlife. Welcome to the new world of the Pacific Northwest ecosystem under global warming.
Initial reports were sobering: A billion shellfish and other intertidal animals baked to death on the coast of British Columbia. The Portland Audubon Society declared a “hawkpocalypse” as it tended to scores of sick and injured birds. And in eastern Oregon, state officials estimated that tens of thousands of sculpin, a bottom-dwelling fish, perished in streams already throttled by drought.
High Country News
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Climate Change, Environmental Science, Global Warming | Comments Off on How heat waves warp ecosystems – High Country News
More good news.
OLYMPIA – Razor clam digging continues in December, as shellfish managers with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) have approved the next round of digs for Washington’s coastal beaches.
The latest tests for marine toxins came back all clear from the Washington Department of Health, which means the first round of December digs can proceed as planned.
“The weather hasn’t always been cooperative the last couple of weeks, but there’s still plenty of opportunities to hit the beach and dig for some razor clams,” said Dan Ayres, coastal shellfish manager with WDFW. “Hopefully December will bring some clearer winter days for people to get out and enjoy this amazing resource.”
Read the whole story here:
https://wdfw.wa.gov/news/decembers-first-razor-clam-digs-moving-ahead-washington-coast-0
Filed under: Aquaculture, Around the Salish Sea, Olympic Peninsula, Shellfish | Tagged: razor clams | Comments Off on December’s first razor clam digs moving ahead on Washington coast
Someday the people unwilling to even consider the end of hatcheries will come around to the science that is more and more frequently showing it doesn’t help.
The Narwhal
After 150 years of experimenting, it’s becoming clear that pumping more baby fish into the ocean may actually be making the problem worse. Ryan Stuart reports…Releasing more fish into the environment might seem like an easy solution to declining numbers. But in nature, this rarely works.
Filed under: Aquaculture, Around the Salish Sea, Endangered Species, Salmon | Comments Off on Will Reviving B.C.s declining salmon stocks require a rethink of hatcheries? – The Narwhal
A controversial finding in recent chinook research.
Researchers made a surprising discovery while tracking Chinook salmon in both the foraging areas of endangered southern resident orcas and the growing, healthy population of the northern resident orcas in B.C. In a study published last week in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, the researchers stated they expected to find the robust population of northern residents fat with fish, and the southern residents stuck with lean pickings. Instead, the team found four to six times the density of big Chinook in the area they tested in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, part of the southern residents’ core foraging area, compared with the area they sampled in the northern residents’ territory, in the Johnstone Strait. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)
https://bit.ly/3FWT9ka
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Endangered Species, Environmental Science, fisheries, Salmon | Comments Off on Researches make surprising discovery while tracking Chinook.
Not really a “mystery” to the tribes who lived and continue to live along this coast. Great work by regional archeologists in uncovering the stories of this incredible aquatic farming by the tribes. What we lost by the European invaders ignorance of the people’s they were conquering is still an unfolding story.
Tens of thousands of wooden stakes poking up from British Columbia’s shoreline have smashed a long-held stereotype of Canada’s First Nation people.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20211013-an-underwater-mystery-on-canadas-coast
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This in from the Wild Fish Conservancy. After trying to move the needle with the WDF&W they have decided that the courts need to get involved. The State should not be allowed to ignore the very laws that it imposes on everyone that lives here, simply to try scientifically dubious efforts to appease special interest groups. To be clear, see the items I’ve boldfaced below to highlight the criticality of this lawsuit.
October 13, 2021— This week, conservation organizations Wild Fish Conservancy and The Conservation Angler filed suit against the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for its repeated refusal to follow state environmental laws when setting statewide hatchery policy, including when it recently embarked upon a massive expansion in the production of hatchery salmon that could cause irreparable damage to fragile wild fish populations and to endangered Southern Resident killer whales.
Filed in King County Superior Court, the lawsuit alleges that the Department has been ignoring the requirements of the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) since 2018, when it suspended key components of a science-based hatchery reform policy designed to prevent state hatcheries from continuing to contribute to the decline of wild populations of salmon and steelhead and from impeding their recovery. This significant action to abandon science-based hatchery reform was taken without any public notice and was widely criticized, including in a letter signed by 77 prominent fisheries and orca scientists and advocates, who called on Governor Inslee to reinstate the science-based policy recommendations and another letter delivered to the Washington legislature by five former Fish and Wildlife Commissioners responsible for implementing the hatchery reform policy in the early 2000’s.
After neutralizing the safeguards provided by this hatchery reform policy, the lawsuit alleges, the Department began to massively increase hatchery production of Chinook, coho, and chum salmon at state run facilities, purportedly to provide more food for Southern Resident killer whales. However, the Department did not support its hatchery expansion plan with any evidence that the Southern Resident killer whales would actually eat or be sustained by hatchery salmon. Killer whale scientists agree the whales subsist primarily upon older and larger Chinook that are found almost exclusively in the native Chinook populations that hatcheries have failed to produce, protect, or restore.
Even worse, the Department refused to engage in the SEPA process, including drafting an environmental impact statement that would have assessed any and all potential adverse impacts of the proposed hatchery expansion on both threatened wild salmon and steelhead populations and on the starving Southern Resident killer whales. Hatcheries have long been recognized as one of the four primary threats to wild fish populations.
“The Department took a big gamble, with the only certain payoff going to Washington’s fishing industry, while all the risks are borne by our orcas and wild salmon populations,” said David Moskowitz, Executive Director of The Conservation Angler. “But state environmental law does not allow the Department to risk the future of our fish and wildlife on such an unproven strategy—it requires our agencies to make well-informed decisions based
on a careful analysis of the potential adverse environmental impacts of their actions.”
In 2020, at the same time the Department was actively implementing massive hatchery increases without environmental scrutiny, the Department released a report titled ‘A review of hatchery reform science in Washington State’ that found “hatcheries have potential for large magnitude ecological impacts on natural populations that are not well understood, not typically evaluated and not measured” and that “…a focus on efficiency and maximizing abundance prevents widespread implementation of risk reduction measures.”
What’s more, the report recommended that prior to increasing hatchery programs, more environmental review was necessary to evaluate cumulative hatchery effects and to ensure increases wouldn’t harm wild fish recovery, warning large-scale hatchery production “can magnify the political pressure to take advantage of abundant hatchery runs at the expense of natural populations” and concluding that increasing program size can raise both “ecological and genetic risks”. The authors warned that “a rigorous justification for program size is essential for implementing scientifically defensible hatchery programs.”
“No doubt, many people supported the state’s ‘Orca Prey Initiative’ with the best of intentions, because it was presented to the public as a scientifically-credible and rigorously vetted solution to feeding the starving population of Southern Resident killer whales. The problem is that scientists know that producing more hatchery fish is not going to solve the problem, and will likely make this crisis worse”, said Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director of Wild Fish Conservancy.
“As ridiculous as it sounds, reducing overharvest of the whales’ primary food wasn’t even considered as an acceptable solution by the Governor’s Southern Resident Orca Task Force and other resource managers. Instead, the plight of the Southern Residents provided an opportunity for powerful commercial and recreational fishing interests to push for massive increases in hatchery production, putting our orcas and wild salmon at even greater risk”, Beardslee says.
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Wild Fish Conservancy is a conservation ecology organization dedicated to conservation, protection, and restoration of wild fish ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest. wildfishconservancy.org
The Conservation Angler fights for the protection of wild Pacific anadromous fish populations throughout the Northwest, all the way to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. theconservationangler.org
Wild Fish Conservancy and The Conservation Angler are represented in this matter by Animal & Earth Advocates, PLLC of Seattle, Washington.
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Endangered Species, Environmental Law, Environmental Protection, fisheries, Government, legislation, Orcas | 2 Comments »
Reader Wendy Feltham sent in these photos she took Thursday as she was bird watching at Point-No-Point. These are J-Pod, according to the OrcaNet.
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea, Around the Sound, Endangered Species, Orcas | Tagged: J-Pod, Point-No-Point | Comments Off on Orcas off Point-No-Point
