1/19 Forage fish, herring fishery, WY coal, pipe protest, Samish shellfish, Vic Clipper, Puget Sound, green vote

Dr. Milton Love

Marine biologists take vow of chastity, poverty. Otherwise, it's a great job.
Career advice from Dr. Milton Love, an actual marine biologist at UCSB and author of "Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast." It’s the time of year when high school student seniors, finally addressing what the hell they want to do with their lives, email me and ask about becoming a marine biologist... (KPCC Off-Ramp)

State of the bait: Study yields insight on tiny fish
Josh Frederick hops out of an idling state Department of Fish and Wildlife motorboat and begins scooping beach gravel into bag labeled with his precise location on Hood Canal. He pulls out a handful and gives it a hard look. "Nothing," he says. Spotting the tiny, pen point-sized eggs of Puget Sound's smallest fish isn't easy, but this stretch of Misery Point has just about everything that spawning herring, smelt and other forage fish could want: shade from trees, few nearby homes, no bulkheads and a beach covered in the not-too-fine, not-too-gritty sediment they favor for tucking in their unhatched young…. Finding few eggs in ideal spawning grounds could be part of the mounting evidence that the sound's forage fish are in decline. That's bad news for salmon, seabirds and just about every marine animal bigger than the bait-sized fish. Tristan Baurick reports. (Kitsap Sun)

First Nation and DFO reach agreement on herring fishery
Less than a year after members of the Heiltsuk First Nation occupied federal fisheries offices in Bella Bella, the two parties have reached an agreement over the Pacific herring fishery. Last March the Department of Fisheries and Oceans opened up the herring roe fishery in the Spiller Channel, which the Heiltsuk Tribal Council said should have remained closed to preserve herring stocks. Eventually, after a tense few days, the federal government agreed to shut down the fishery, and the two parties began working on a joint management plan for the stocks. (CBC)

Wyoming officials back various schemes in bid to rescue coal
Public enemy No. 1 for climate change and no longer the fossil fuel utilities prefer to burn to generate electricity, coal has few allies these days. But one state is still fighting to save the industry: Wyoming. From a proposal to burn the stuff underground to hosting a contest to find profitable uses for carbon dioxide from power plants, the top coal-producing state has spent tens of millions of dollars for a coal savior — with little to show. Mead Gruver reports. (Associated Press)

Kinder Morgan protest leads to 7 arrests
Seven people were arrested Monday morning while protesting the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline. According to Burnaby RCMP, four protesters boarded a barge sitting about 100 metres offshore at Westridge Marine Terminal on Sunday, and remained there overnight. Police were called Monday, after more activists joined the protest, and were asked to remove them. The boat is being used for test drilling. (CBC

When it comes to shellfish harvesting, all eyes on Samish Bay
State officials have big goals this year when it comes to increasing shellfish harvest areas, and Samish Bay can play a big part in reaching those goals. Puget Sound Partnership and the Washington Shellfish Initiative, which Gov. Jay Inslee launched into a second phase Friday, want to have 10,800 more acres in Puget Sound open for shellfish harvesting by 2020 than there was in 2007. Since 2007, the state has opened about 3,800 acres. This year’s goal is to bring that to about 6,400 acres, according to the Governor’s Office. Kimberly Cauvel reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)

Seattle Clipper sold to German company; new routes planned
The Clipper sale to Förde Reederei Seetouristik is not expected to bring changes to the Victoria Clipper lines. In fact, the acquisition is to allow Clipper to open a route between Vancouver and Victoria. Janet Tu reports. (Seattle Times) See also: See also: New passenger ferry set to run between Victoria and downtown Vancouver  Brian Morton reports. (Vancouver Sun)

What’s in a name? Further reflections on Puget Sound
My recent story on how a “the” seems to keep cropping up in front of the name “Puget Sound” generated a good deal of comment. I would say from the emails I received that, to local ears, the phrase “the Puget Sound” is akin to fingernails on the blackboard. There seems to be general agreement with my speculation that this phenomenon is a creeping Californiaism. Blaming Californians always feels good, like a bracing slap of wet Pacific air that restores one’s sense of Northwestiness. Knute Berger writes. (Crosscut)

Two big environmental groups back Sen. Murray’s reelection: In lockstep with the Democrats?
Two big, established environmental lobbies — the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters Action Fund — are backing Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray’s bid for a fifth term. The endorsements signal that “big green” groups that once endorsed candidates of both parties have become a virtual functioning arm of the Democratic Party, in Washington and other states. The League of Conservation Voters, and its affiliate Washington Conservation Voters, poured resources into the 2012 election of Gov. Jay Inslee. They are expected to go all-out to get Inslee reelected this fall. Joel Connelly reports. (SeattlePI.Com)

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA-  229 AM PST TUE JAN 19 2016  

SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY FOR HAZARDOUS SEAS IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS  AFTERNOON  

TODAY  SE WIND TO 10 KT...BECOMING E 5 TO 15 KT IN THE AFTERNOON.  WIND WAVES 2 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 12 FT AT 15 SECONDS...SUBSIDING TO  10 FT AT 14 SECONDS IN THE AFTERNOON. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS IN THE  MORNING...THEN A SLIGHT CHANCE OF RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON.

TONIGHT  E WIND 5 TO 15 KT IN THE EVENING...BECOMING LIGHT. WIND  WAVES 1 TO 2 FT IN THE EVENING...BECOMING LESS THAN 1 FT. W SWELL  9 FT AT 14 SECONDS. RAIN LIKELY IN THE EVENING...THEN A CHANCE OF  SHOWERS AFTER MIDNIGHT.

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