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| Pea crab [WoRMS] |
Pea Crabs live inside clams, mussels, and oysters, and people sitting down to a seafood meal occasionally find them. Those in the know consider them delicacies. Pea Crabs fit their name. The largest females measure under an inch across. Full-grown males are much smaller. These tiny crabs live in the part of clams and similar creatures called the mantle, which, among other things, sifts food and oxygen from sea water. Positioned atop the mantle's gills, Pea Crabs snag bits of food, get oxygen, and enjoy the protection of their host's hard shell. (Friends of Skagit Beaches)
Scientists implant noisemakers in chinook, deploy tracking array on seafloor to solve salmon mystery
.... With a $1.2 million research grant from the U.S. Navy, scientists are deploying new tools to help scientists track chinook in part to better understand the travels of the whales, which are shifting. Usually reliable summer residents of the inshore waters of the San Juan Islands, this year the whales have been seen only for a couple of brief trips since May, an unprecedented orca dearth possibly linked to a lack of adequate prey. The orcas are believed to be traveling the outer coast — in search of chinook. Scientists are looking, too: This spring they dropped 115 receivers into the sea, weighed down with 26,000 pounds of sand in burlap bags, 3 to 10 nautical miles off the Washington Coast to track tagged fish. Lynda Makes reports. (Seattle Times)
Size limit on chinook salmon introduced to help fish blocked at landslide
The federal government will implement a maximum size of chinook salmon to be caught by recreational fishers in an effort to help the thousands of fish blocked at a landslide in B.C. ...(An) 80 centimetre size limit from July 15 to July 31 (is) meant to allow more chinook salmon to get up Fraser River...Since late June, thousands of salmon have become blocked at a waterfall west of Clinton on the Fraser River, following a landslide. The waterfall is blocking the fish from travelling upstream to spawn. (CBC)
Climate Crisis Has Made Breathing Smoke Normal in Pacific Northwest
You can’t accuse Grace Stahre of not working to turn climate change around. She’s fought the fossil fuel industry in court, on the streets, in kayaks and on social media. She has rallied to stop new coal terminals and helped pass a moratorium on new gas pipeline infrastructure. And she has lobbied for investment in renewable energy in Seattle, Washington, the city she calls home. Stahre knew an increase in wildfires for the Pacific Northwest was predicted as a major consequence of climate change 20 years ago. What she didn’t know is how quickly wildfires would bring catastrophic climate change to her doorstep. Martha Baskin reports. (Truthout)
Scorecard Spurs WA Cities to Control Stormwater Pollution
After years of work, cities in Washington are doing more to protect Puget Sound from its biggest source of pollution: stormwater runoff. A report from the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and Washington Environmental Council helped motivate them. In 2017, the groups released their progress rating, called "Nature's Scorecard," for 83 Puget Sound municipalities to measure how they were meeting 2012 codes to reduce toxic stormwater. It found fewer than half were making meaningful progress.... In the 2019 scorecard released this month, nearly three-quarters of municipalities are making meaningful progress. (Public News Network)
Tribes come ashore at Lower Elwha Klallam site in Paddle to Lummi
Speaking the Klallam language, the youth of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe welcomed coastal tribes from Washington and British Columbia to the newly formed beach on the east side of the Elwha River on Sunday. It was a milestone in the Paddle to Lummi that involved tribes from Canada crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca and meeting with Washington tribes as they landed at the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s reservation for the first time since 2005. Jesse Major reports. (Peninsula Daily News)
Old-growth forest should be returned to 30% of original level, researchers say
A team from the University of Victoria is pushing for greater protection of old-growth forests in British Columbia in a report that calls for at least 30 per cent of the province's original forest to be preserved. Keith Schille, a law student at UVic and lead author of the new report, said preservation quotas often look at the amount of forest currently standing rather than taking into account what was there in the past.... Schille estimates that only about 20 per cent of Vancouver Island's original forest is still standing compared to before deforestation initiatives. Across B.C., there are about 32,000 square kilometres of old-growth forests about five per cent of the province's total forested area. Clare Hennig reports. (CBC)
Friday earthquakes on a crustal fault show it's not only the 'Big One' we should fear
The Cascadia Subduction Zone may get most of the attention, but as Friday’s earthquakes north of Seattle show, the monster fault off the coast isn’t our only seismic threat. Western Washington is also crisscrossed by more than a dozen large, shallow faults — cracks in the Earth’s crust capable of unleashing damaging earthquakes. Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Olympia and Bremerton all sit uncomfortably close to crustal faults. And new evidence suggests that in the aggregate, those faults might rupture more frequently than previously thought. Sandi Doughton reports. (Seattle Times) See also: Seattle may be closer to Canada after morning earthquake Angela King and Jason Pagano report. (KUOW)
Ravenous bull frogs and shell disease: the trials and tribulations of the endangered western pond turtle
...The western pond turtles, which dine on insects, crayfish and other small creatures, are a broader indicator of the health of wetlands, which are important to a wide range of species. They are one more intriguing example of the diversity of wildlife native to our region.... These turtles, which can live for more than a half century, were once found throughout much of Western Washington, including in ponds all over the Puget Sound region and Southwest Washington. Development and dams destroyed much of their habitat, some were grabbed by humans to be sold as pets or for their meat, and ravenous bullfrogs found their way to the turtles’ remaining refuges. Hal Bernton reports. (Seattle Times)
EPA to allow use of pesticide considered ‘very highly toxic’ to bees
The Environmental Protection Agency approved broad new applications Friday for a controversial insecticide, despite objections from environmental groups and beekeepers who say it is among the compounds responsible for eviscerating the nation’s bee populations. Alexandra Dunn, head of the EPA office that oversees pesticides, said the agency was “thrilled” to be able to approve new uses and lift past restrictions on sulfoxaflor, which she called a “highly effective” tool for growers around the country — but which the agency itself considers “very highly toxic” to bees. The decision will allow the chemical to be applied to a wide array of crops, including citrus and corn, soybeans and strawberries, pineapples and pumpkins. Brady Dennis reports. (Washington Post)
Hood Canal blooms again, as biologists assess role of armored plankton
In what is becoming an annual event, portions of Hood Canal have changed colors in recent days, the result of a large bloom of armored plankton called coccolithophores. Teri King, a plankton expert with Washington Sea Grant, has been among the first to take notice of the turquoise blooms each year they occur. “Guess who is back?” Teri wrote in the blog Bivalves for Clean Water. “She showed up June 24 in Dabob Bay and has been shining her Caribbean blueness throughout the bay and spreading south toward Quilcene Bay.” Chris Dunagan reports. (Watching Our Water Ways)
Flawed analysis leads clean-air agency to support climate-harming gas plant
Environmentalists have soured on natural gas.... Many activists refuse to even call the substance found in the earth “natural” gas anymore, preferring to re-brand it “fracked” gas. The shift has fueled clashes over energy projects around the world and on the Tacoma waterfront. Puget Sound Energy’s ongoing construction of a 14-story-tall tank for holding super-chilled gas there has drawn heated protests. John Ryan reports. (KUOW) See also: Jordan Cove LNG Plans Not Good Enough For People Or Environment, Oregon Says The state of Oregon says federal environmental impact findings for the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas project are inadequate and sometimes incorrect. State agencies submitted 250 pages of comments to federal energy regulators late last week on the project’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has the power to determine whether the controversial project can be built. The Canadian company Pembina is proposing to build an LNG export terminal and pipeline in southwest Oregon. Yes Burns reports. (OPB)
The Benefits of Marine Protected Areas Spill into Neighboring Waters
A new genetic analysis demonstrates the spillover effect in action, showing that fish leave marine protected areas for fishable waters. Alastair Bland reports. (Hakai Magazine)
Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca- 251 AM PDT Mon Jul 15 2019 TODAY W wind to 10 kt rising to 10 to 20 kt in the afternoon. Wind waves 1 ft or less building to 1 to 3 ft in the afternoon. SW swell 2 ft at 9 seconds. A chance of showers.
TONIGHT W wind 5 to 15 kt becoming NW after midnight. Wind waves 2 ft or less. SW swell 2 ft at 9 seconds. A slight chance of showers in the evening.
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"Salish Sea News & Weather" is compiled as a community service by Mike Sato. To subscribe, send your name and email to msato (@) salishseacom.com. Your email information is never shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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