9/7 Green hair, J56, Arlington stream, North Cascades snowpack, BC sea cucumbers, Skagit farmland, ferruginous hawks, Wild Olympics, ocean navigator, WA ferries

Green hair [Jan Holmes]

 
Green hair Urospora sp.
Rocks that look like they are growing green hair are often covered by the unbranching filamentous green algae Urospora.  A pinch full of this seaweed in clean seawater will separate into individual filaments enabling you to see (better with a hand lens) long filaments of swollen barrel-shaped cells resembling strands of green pearls.   Urospora can be found in the mid to low intertial.  Individual filaments average 10 cm (4 inches) in length. (Jan Holmes/Sound Water Stewards)

Baby J pod orca ailing; whale-watch tours ordered to keep away
Baby orca J56 is ailing and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has issued an emergency rule ordering commercial whale-watch tours to stay farther away to help her survive. Tofino, as the baby is also known, was born in May 2019 to J pod. She is the second offspring of Tsuchi (J31). Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)

In Arlington, a stream is born, giving fish a new route
The Adopt A Stream demonstration project will help salmon and trout avoid roadside pollution. The $250,000 Adopt A Stream project, part of the Olaf Strad tributary about a mile south of Arlington Municipal Airport, was years in the making. Before, coho salmon would have to swim in roadside ditches along 162nd Avenue NE and 67th Avenue NE, exposed to all the pollutants that come with roads and cars. Zachariah Bryan reports. (Everett Herald)

In North Cascades, researchers, climbers watch Washington’s snowpack quickly melt, exposing glaciers’ retreat
Washington has the most glaciers of any state in the Lower 48. These frozen reservoirs of freshwater keep alpine streams flowing through summer, cool the rivers for salmon making their seasonal spawning journeys and provide humans drinking water and hydropower. Glaciers of the past carved Washington’s landscape. They gouged out Lake Washington and molded Seattle’s steep hills. On clear days, Mount Rainier’s ice still dominates the skyline, reminding those of us sipping lattes in skyscrapers that rugged forces still shape us. But Northwest glaciers, shrinking, receding and collapsing, are on a climate-change driven path of decline. Evan Bush reports. (Seattle Times)

Sea cucumber die-off near Vancouver Island prompts fears of wasting disease that nearly wiped out sea stars
When Kathleen Reed descended for her usual weekly dive off the coast of Nanaimo, B.C., last Saturday she was shocked by how many dead sea cucumbers she saw. Reed has completed more than 500 dives and says she'd never seen so many of the deep red echinoderms turned pale, limp and slimy...Experts and harvesters fear that sea cucumbers found off the coast of Vancouver Island are being hit by an illness similar to sea star wasting disease, which swept through the B.C. population in 2015 and 2016, killing 96 per cent of the creatures. Yvette Brend reports. (CBC)

Skagit County farmland protection program has preserved 13,500 acres 
Three decades ago, a grassroots movement to protect farmland in Skagit County was started. Those involved wanted to ensure the area’s farmland — declared by the federal government in 1925 as the best in the country — was not paved over and lost to development, and that agriculture remained viable. Those efforts led to the founding of the Skagit County Farmland Legacy Program in 1996. In its 25th year, the county-led program has permanently protected about 13,500 acres. Jackie Allison reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)

Ferruginous hawks in Washington deemed endangered
The number of ferruginous hawks in Washington continues to decline. The birds face multiple threats, including wildfires, urban sprawl and loss of prey. Washington’s ferruginous hawk population is continuing to slip. The state Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously voted at a meeting in August to change the hawk’s status from threatened to endangered, in an effort to stop the decline. Courtney Flatt reports. (NW News Network)

Wild Olympics legislation on upswing
Sen. Patty Murray has high hopes that Wild Olympics legislation will be approved by the U.S. Senate after a decade of trying and failing at congressional passage. First introduced in 2012 by Murray and 6th District U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks — and reintroduced in every Congress by Murray and then by Dicks’ successor, Derek Kilmer — the Wild Olympics Wilderness & Wild and Scenic Rivers Act received its first Senate hearing earlier this summer and is awaiting full Senate consideration. Paul Gottlieb reports. (Peninsula Daily News)

Coastal Job: Traditional Ocean Navigator
Nainoa Thompson is a Native Hawaiian master navigator for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, an organization that seeks to preserve traditional Polynesian wayfinding. He navigates the open ocean for weeks at a time without using any modern instruments. When the society embarked on a worldwide voyage from 2014 to 2017, Thompson navigated a third of the legs in a double-hulled voyaging canoe called Hōkūleʻa. Nainoa Thompson talks to Berly McCoy. (Hakai Magazine)

All hands on deck at Washington State Ferries over Labor Day weekend, as sickout doesn’t materialize
This Labor Day holiday was perhaps the easiest weekend of the summer for Washington State Ferries, as fears of a crippling crew shortage came to naught. Vessels served all 19 scheduled destinations throughout Puget Sound with zero sailings canceled, as of 3:50 p.m. Monday afternoon. “Everybody showed up. It’s been our smoothest weekend in weeks,” said Ian Sterling, a spokesperson for the ferry system. Mike Lindblom reports. (Seattle Times)

Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  356 AM PDT Tue Sep 7 2021   
TODAY  Light wind becoming NW to 10 kt in the afternoon. Wind  waves 1 ft or less. W swell 3 ft at 9 seconds. Patchy dense fog  in the morning. 
TONIGHT  W wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell  4 ft at 10 seconds. A chance of showers and a slight chance of  tstms after midnight.

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