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Marine Ecosytem Health Program in San Juan Islands

New Research on Local Marine Mammal Strandings

posted 06/29/04
Nearly a hundred dead or sick marine mammals strand in San Juan County every year. Local research now shows that seals, porpoise, and other marine mammals are more likely to strand on certain types of beaches. The SeaDoc Society and the Whale Museum will sponsor a free public lecture about these findings at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 29, 2004 at The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. Light refreshments will be available.

For the past 20 years, The Whale Museum has administered the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Morgan Sternberg, an undergraduate honors student at the University of Washington, recently analyzed 20 years of marine mammal stranding data from San Juan County. Working with the SeaDoc Society, Whale Museum and researchers at the University of Washington, Sternberg was able to determine where in the county marine mammals are most likely to strand. This information will help increase the number of carcasses collected, which are used to learn more about the biology and diseases of these animals.

In Sternberg's research she noticed marine mammals tend to strand more often on beaches facing west and south. Beaches facing between west and south accounted for nearly 67% of all marine mammal strandings in San Juan County. Sternberg also noticed patterns of strandings based on the slope and fetch of the beach: strandings tended to occur more often on beaches with a gradually declining slope and a fetch of over 14,000 feet. The fetch of a beach is distance that wind and waves can travel between the beach and the nearest geographical obstruction.

Interestingly, there was a correlation between Sternberg's research and findings by Dr. Terrie Klinger of the University of Washington who recently conducted research on currents throughout the region. Dr. Klinger used drift cards that were dispersed throughout the county and later retrieved on beaches throughout the region by beachcombers. Sternberg found that in many ways, marine mammal strandings and drift cards, land on beaches with similar directional orientation, slope, and fetch.

If you find a sick or dead marine mammal on the beach, do not touch it. Instead, mark the location and call the stranding network's toll free hotline (1-800-562-8832). A network representative will instruct you on how to proceed. Seals and sea lions may "haul out" onto shore as a normal behavior throughout year and may not be in distress at all. It is important to keep your distance from the animal because human interaction may further complicate the situation. Cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) should never be ashore and should be reported immediately.

Number of whale necropsies will increase worldwide

posted 05/18/04
What role does infectious disease play in the decline in killer whale population? Worldwide, less than three percent of stranded whale bodies have been necropsied limiting the amount of information on the topic. The number of necropsies will increase as a result of work done by Orcas Island-based SeaDoc Society. While compiling figures for a paper on infectious diseases in whales, SeaDoc Director Joe Gaydos was in touch with scientists around the world. As a result a protocol for dealing with deceased whales has been developed.

The necropsy protocol will be finalized this week. "It's been used three times in the last month. Hopefully we will learn a lot in the next few years," Gaydos told participants at a whale symposium on May 15, 2004 in Friday Harbor. "The idea is to have free information sharing." If researchers don't have funds to conduct lab tests on samples from the deceased whales, there are labs which have agreed to do the tests for free.

Currently researchers only know of 16 pathogens which affect whales. Gaydos noted researchers have found 190 pathogens which affect elk. There may be diseases which affect the reproductive ability of killer whales. If there are, the projected population rates would need to be revised, he said.

"The idea behind it is to get as much information we can as fast as we can," Gaydos said. The protocol will likely be published as a NOAA technical document. Information about the program will also be available on the SeaDoc Web site.

More than $1 million raised locally for research

posted 12/19/03
SeaDoc Society recently awarded $210,000 in funding to support targeted research focused on restoring health to Washington's troubled marine waters and their wildlife. This brings the total to more than $1 million in four years. All of the funding has come from private donations by local citizens. "The results of research we have funded are already helping to improve the health of the marine ecosystem and I'm excited about these new projects doing the same," says Joe Gaydos, the regional director of the SeaDoc Society and a resident of Orcas Island.

A recently completed study showed that within the Puget Sound/Georgia Basin marine ecosystem, over 62 species are listed as threatened, endangered, or are candidates for listing. This and other troubling issues have led some to describe the marine ecosystem as being in decay, a term first coined to describe the world-wide unraveling of tropical rainforest ecosystems.

Research projects funded this year address recovery of declining rockfish, Pacific herring, and white-winged and surf scoters. Additionally, a project also was funded to investigate historical tribal knowledge of marine fish and wildlife and the tribal implications for using protected areas as a tool for recovering species.

Within the region, SeaDoc Society-funded research results are being actively used by local marine resource committees, state agencies, tribes, and federal agencies such as NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The US Fish & Wildlife Service is the organization that manages the Washington Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes the local San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

The SeaDoc Society is a program of the Wildlife Health Center, a center of excellence at the world-renowned UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. The Wildlife Health Center develops and administers innovative programs that create solutions for threatened wildlife and their ailing ecosystems.

For more information about the SeaDoc Society, visit www.seadocsociety.org or contact Joe Gaydos at the SeaDoc Society office on Orcas Island, Wash., at (360) 376-3910 or jkgaydos@ucdavis.edu

New name for MEHP

posted 11/04/03
The Marine Ecosystem Health Program has a new name - SeaDoc Society. The Web site is seadocsociety.org

San Juan County well represented
at International Research Conference

posted 04/07/03
VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Almost 800 people attended the 2003 Georgia Basin / Puget Sound Research Conference, held here March 31-April 3, 2003. Included in that group were over 20 people from San Juan County. In addition to private citizens, local groups represented at the conference included:

• Friends of the San Juans
  
  
• The Marine Ecosystem Health Program of University of California, Davis
  
  
• The Northwest Straits Commission and the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee
  
  
• People for Puget Sound
  
  
• The Samish Indian Nation
  
  
• The San Juan County government
  
  

The conference theme, "applying science and information to sustainability in a shared transboundary ecosystem," was echoed throughout the 300 presentations given during the four-day conference. Topics covered included status reports on living marine resources and new findings about threats faced by those resources including toxins, invasive species, global climate change, and diminishing regional air quality.

Researchers also discussed how scientific data was being used to improve resource management and decisions being made at the individual level. Presented research from San Juan County included:

• Seafloor mapping of the San Juan Channel
  
  
• Mapping of forage-fish spawning habitat in San Juan County
  
  
• Evaluating the function of San Juan National Wildlife Refuge System buffer zones as a marine protected area
  
  
• How native peoples shaped the San Juans and Puget Sound ecosystem
  
  
• The design of marine protected areas for rockfish recovery
  
  
• Patterns of larval settlement based on water surface circulation
  
  

Joe Gaydos, the staff scientist for the UC Davis Marine Ecosystem Health Program, presented a paper identifying 60 threatened or endangered species in the region and gave the conference's closing comments.

"This conference is about linking good science to decisions being made about natural resources in the Puget Sound/Georgia Basin ecosystem. The decisions we make now will influence our economic and social future and will affect our quality of life," Gaydos said after the conference. "We are still missing important scientific data needed to make better decisions, but the fact that San Juan County is so well represented here is encouraging."

The Marine Ecosystem Health Program (MEHP) was established in January 2000 by the Wildlife Health Center of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Its mission is to apply science to the problems facing marine wildlife and ecosystems.

At present, the program is based on Orcas Island and focuses on issues facing the inland waters of the region, including Puget Sound, the Northwest Straits and Georgia Basin. Those issues include declines in fish and wildlife populations, environmental contamination of the marine ecosystem and wildlife, and introduction of non-native species.

$315,000 awarded
to eight scientific studies

posted 01/28/02
Joe Gaydos hopes to work himself out of a job. He's a staff scientist and veterinarian with UC Davis Marine Ecosystem Health Program (MEHP). The program helps find scientific solutions to problems facing the inland waters of Washington and British Columbia. On Jan. 10, 2002 MEHP awarded eight grants totaling $315,000 for research.

MEHP believes the Inland Waters are in a health crisis citing declines in northern abalone, salmon, herring, cod, rockfish and Olympia oyster populations. The high levels of contaminants found in killer whales is also a concern. While there are other groups dedicated to saving the environment in the San Juans. MEHP serves as a gap filler with its funding.

"Money drives science," Gaydos said. "We need to increase the number of studies underway if we are to quickly and effectively understand and reverse the problems facing our marine ecosystem...We network with different groups and get science out to the people making decisions."

MEHP began in 2000 after a resident of the San Juan Islands anonymously donated $1.5 million for the program to UC Davis Wildlife Health Center. The center seeks balanced solutions through education, research and service to the problems facing wildlife health and conservation.

The program is not anti-fishing. "I love to crab," said Gaydos. "We don't want to have a park. Wildlife populations need to be sustainable. We need to save some for next week."

Gaydos is based on Orcas Island and is available as a resource on ecosystem and wildlife health issues. His email address is jkgaydos@ucdavis.edu.

According to their brochure key aspects of MEHP include:

• Funding scientists through an annual Competitive Grants program to conduct important and innovative research on topics essential to the health of the region and its wildlife, such as marine protected areas, invasive species, and the presence and effect of contaminants on marine organisms
  
  
• Providing expertise and assistance in the areas of marine conservation and animal health through an on-site staff scientist and veterinarian
  
  
• Conducting scientific research on key indicators of ecosystem health and ways to ameliorate ecosystem health problems
  
  
• Sharing information to ensure that pertinent scientific data is available to managers, policymakers and concerned citizens
  
  
• Facilitating collaboration and networking among academic scientists, natural resource trustee agencies, private organizations, and policymakers through sponsorship of symposia and strategic-planning sessions.

In 2001 MHEP received 55 grant applications and awarded $290,000. They received 100 applications for their 2002 grants. Pre-proposals for the next grant cycle are due in April 2002. More information is available on the MEHP Web site.

Grants awarded for studies of:

the impact of the introduced Japanese seaweed Sargassum muticum on native kelp forests of the San Juan Archipelago

environmental contaminants present in killer whale prey species, such as salmon

causes of developmental abnormalities in larval Pacific herring

wetlands site quality for migrating shorebirds

distribution of larval rockfish in relationship to marine protected areas

the function of the San Juan Island National Wildlife Refuge as a marine protected areas

the effects of commercial geoduck harvest on non-target invertebrate species

understanding how levels of oxygen, nutrients and plankton from ocean waters influence the Inland Sea.

MEHP ADVISORY BOARD

Deborah Brosnan
Marine ecologist and conservation biologist
President, Sustainable Ecosystems Institute
Portland, OR

Wally Gudgell
Local citizen
Orcas Island, WA

Tom Cowan
Director, Northwest Straits Commission
Lopez Island, WA

Grant Kirby
Marine biologist
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
Mt. Vernon, WA

Gary Davis
Senior Scientist/Marine Biologist
Channel Islands National Park, CA

Kathy and Ron McDowell
Local citizens
Orcas Island, WA

Leslie Dierauf
Conservation biologist and marine mammal veterinarian
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Kevin Ranker
Director, Pacific Northwest Regional Office
Surfrider Foundation
San Juan Island, WA

MEHP SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Gary Greene
Marine geologist
Moss Landing Marine Laboratories
California State University, San Jose

Wayne Palsson
Senior fish biologist
Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
Mill Creek, WA

Mart Gross
Conservation biologist
University of Toronto
Ontario, Canada

Peter Ross
Marine toxicologist and biologist
Canada Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans
Victoria, British Columbia

Terrie Klinger
Marine biologist
Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories
University of Washington

Michael Stoskopf
Marine biologist and wildlife veterinarian
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina

Linda Lowenstine
Veterinary pathologist
UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

Glenn Van Blaricom
Marine ecologist
School of Fisheries University of Washington

Edward Melvin
Marine biologist
Washington Sea Grant
University of WA

Jacques White
Marine ecologist
People for Puget Sound
Seattle, WA

Richard Osborne
Marine biologist
Director of Research, The Whale Museum
Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA

Dennis Willows
Marine biologist
Director, Friday Harbor Laboratories
University of WA

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