SSAMN Stream

Forage fish, or small schooling fish species that serve as important prey for larger fish, marine mammals, and sea birds are vitally important to supporting a thriving marine ecosystem. On this episode, Phillip Dionne, Washington State Forage Fish Research and Management Lead at WDFW, discusses forage fish research WDFW is involved in the southern Salish Sea, including annual macrovegetation (&quo...

With Earth Day coming up, a lot of attention is on global warming. One impact of global warming is increased harmful algal blooms (HABs). There are a lot of misconceptions out there about HABs. True or False? Red tides are always red. You should only ever eat shellfish in months with R’s. You only have to really worry about red tides in summer. Answer: False to all of the above! How did you do? On...

On this episode, Dr. Scott Pearson, Research Scientist with WDFW, shares with us about the important long-term work WDFW is undertaking to monitor population abundance and trends of different seabird species that breed locally or over-winter in the Puget Sound, San Juan Archipelago, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Washington Coast. Marbled murrelets, tufted puffins, and rhinoceros auklets are just som...

Fraser River Chinook salmon are a very important food source for our beloved North Pacific orcas but sadly these salmon are struggling to survive. On this episode, we find out about some of the actions being taken to help them. Raincoast Conservation Foundation (RCF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the lands, waters and wildlife of coastal British Columbia. While their team is...

January 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of when a lone, orphaned Northern Resident orca calf, Springer, was first seen in Puget Sound, WA, and an extraordinary journey began to rescue her and reunite her with her family in Canadian Waters. To commemorate this anniversary, this very special podcast episode features interviews with several individuals involved in the events as they share their memor...

What better way to start out a new year than with whales! On this episode, Jared Towers, a cetacean research technician with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, joins us for a fascinating in-depth conversation about the Northern Resident killer whales (NRKWs). NRKWs are a population of killer whales (also known as orcas) that eat fish and reside in waters around, and above, northern Vancouver Island. We’...

Happy Holidays! Tis the season to be merry with friends and family! In that spirit, on this episode, I interview my fellow co-worker at The Whale Museum, Alyssa Scott, Stranding Network Coordinator/Acoustician, about the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network (SJCMMSN). Follow along as we explore the ins and outs of marine mammal rescue, stranding call response, her involvement with the l...

Dubbed “vacuum cleaners” of the sea, sea cucumbers play an important role in ecosystems. Sea cucumbers are one of more than 3,000 marine invertebrate species we have here in the Salish Sea. Did you know they can defend themselves by shooting their internal organs out through either their head or butt? Or, that several species of pearlfish live inside their butts? These are just some of the amazing...

We hope you are a shiver with excitement for this topic! Do you know we have sharks here in the Salish Sea? For our very first podcast, we are so happy to have research scientist, Dr. Jackie King, from the Ecosystem Science Division of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, joining us to talk about sharks! We'll discuss what species we have here in the Salish Sea, their life history/biology, current re...