Orcasphere

This project could help raise awareness about the risk to SRKW recovery posed by persistent pollutants.  Congrats to Anne, Chrissy, and the rest of the PTMSC team!
PTMSC awarded $150,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for its Orca Project
Port Townsend, WA—Thanks to a grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library [...]

A panel presentation about a 2-week journey in 2008 in which YSI probes and GPS units were carried by traditional canoes .  They observed a low dissolved oxygen area around the San Juan archipelago.
Web site
Plans for 2009:

interpret wrt physical oceanographic models (e.g. currents)
continuous monitoring by moorings
depth profiles from chase boats (echosounders)
maybe plankton tows and grab [...]

Elisabeth Duffy*, David Beauchamp
Juvenile salmon are moving through Puget Sound (PS) from April-July.  By end of July most have made it to the deep ocean.  Percent of fish from hatcheries is about 50% in N PS and 90% in S PS.
Nearshore fish comunity: herring and perch up north, hatchery salmon dominate in the south; salmon [...]

Live blog from the Puget Sound Partnership Education, Communication, and Outreach Summit.  The stated purpose of the Summit is “to revitalize the ECO Net and its relationship with the Puget Sound Partnership’s goals and priorities.”
9:15 Bill Ruckelshaus discussed need for grassroots change despite the budgetary stresses in Washington State and D.C.  (Dave Dix was unable [...]

With special thanks for support from the Makah Tribe and coordination by Jon Scordino, there is now underwater sound streaming live from Neah Bay via the Salish Sea hydrophone network. The network is an experiment in human and automated monitoring of underwater sounds within the critical habitat of the endangered southern resident killer whales. [...]

The first spring Beam Reach program ended 10 days ago.  Student research projects are documented at the spring 2008 class home page.  Proposals and final papers are available as of today.  Presentations will be posted in the next week or so as PPT files and/or videos.

The context:
The best kept secret in all civilizations is that we are animals! We are medium-sized mammals, who just happen to have evolved the ability and the need to construct vast symbolic systems to define ourselves, and now we can’t see our way out of our own systems, so we fight each other to the [...]