Centennial Story 23: Jose Villalon (MS, 1981)

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After a BS degree in Biology from Florida International University in 1979, I went to work for my father for six months while thinking about graduate school. UW came to my attention because it was rated in the top three aquaculture schools in the USA. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a marine biologist and thought aquaculture was the “way of the future”. I therefore packed my belongings, including my pet Quaker parrot, Balboa, into my CJ-5 Jeep and drove to Seattle. It took about 8-days with 5-days of actual driving and 3-days repairing mechanical failures. It took about three days walking the waterfront’s white-linen restaurant area and filling out job applications at all the restaurants before I got a job at the Fisherman’s Restaurant. Those three days were hungry days as I had little money; my meals were basically sourdough bread and coca cola – a combination that filled me up.

I went to the College of Fisheries to try to meet the Dean of Admissions. He told me they were not accepting more students and my only option was to enroll as a 5th-year student, which I did. I then went looking for Ken Chew who had written me a nice and potentially promising letter. He heard my story and could not believe that I had driven across the USA without a promise of being accepted! My naivety impressed him so much that he wrote the Dean of Admissions, which led to me arguing my case for possible admission. He accepted my arguments and authorized a change to my 5th-year status to “applicable for graduation”, contingent on being accepted into the Graduate School as a full-time student.

As I started taking two classes, I met John Halver, the world’s undisputed “father of fish nutrition”.  I was really hungry to learn more because I thought nutrition must be the key to efficient aquaculture. I started visiting him in his office and asking questions about fish nutrition and one day he said; “Why don’t you do a Master’s program with me?”

I owe a lot to John Halver; he accepted me, taught me to think critically and always ask; why? He was always supportive and ready to offer advice, solicited or unsolicited! He opened many doors for me throughout my career. George Pigott and George Brown rounded out my MS Committee. George helped me obtain a small but important scholarship to defray my academic costs.

I met a lot of incredible people during my two years at the UW, including Ron Hardy (PhD 1978; now at Hagerman Idaho’s Fish Laboratory). Barbee Tucker (MS, 1974; PhD, 1983), Nancy Heck (PhD, 1983) and Dick Stockard (MS, 1983) all studied under George Pigott and we collaborated on projects; in particular, the development of pre-digested protein flake diets for marine fish larvae. Dan Grosse (MS, 1982; PhD, 1994) and Jeff Laufle (MS, 1982) shared some classes with me and we became friends. Dan went on to own an oyster farm in Maryland and Jeff is now retired after a successful career with Washington State Dept. of Fisheries. I also remain friends today with Jim Buizer (MMA, 1984) which was a graduate student at the School of Marine Affairs. Jim went on to become a scientist and administrator at NOAA and is now a professor at the University of Arizona.

After graduating, I began a career as a shrimp farmer. John Halver was instrumental in setting me up for my first job interview with a company where he was consulting, Worldwide Protein, Inc in St. Croix Virgin Islands. After two years there, I went to Guayaquil Ecuador with an American company who were exporting shrimp. I remained in Ecuador for 12 years managing their 1,000 hectares of shrimp farms, a hatchery and a feed mill. I wrote a shrimp farming manual in 1991 that was well received by the industry and remains in use today. I married, had a daughter, and then moved to Mexico for 12 years working for a variety of shrimp farming operations; our son was born there.

Mexico became too violent to raise a family so I took job with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to lead their global aquaculture program. I managed WWF’s ambitious and global multi-stakeholder initiative called the Aquaculture Dialogues, which involved 2,200 stakeholders from the farming community, food retailer sector, NGOs, academia and government creating environmental/social standards for 12 species in the aquaculture industry, including farmed salmon, shrimp, and tilapia. WWF then asked me to set up an independent NGO to manage the certification process for a business-to-consumer ecolabel. I then created and co-founded the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) with partners in The Netherlands. Today, the ASC is the most credible and robust environmental aquaculture standard in the world. Establishing the ASC was probably the most rewarding professional experience and accomplishment in my career.  Later I joined Nutreco in The Netherlands as its Corporate Sustainability Director.

My take-away? -When you’re not the “sharpest knife in the room” you can still come out on top if you’re persistent and not afraid to plead your case. This experience made me aware of that. Granted, I had a lot of good luck and found myself surrounded by really good people, but I did my part to make things happen and things eventually fell into place. Albeit an insecure place where I may have been the first person to predict failure –but the quilt was woven ultimately well.

 



 


 


 

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Centennial Story 22: Fran Solomon (PhD, 1980)

		
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In 1980, I became the second woman to earn a PhD in fisheries at the UW.  My program focused on water pollution ecology, emphasizing impacts of toxic chemicals on aquatic biota. I want to thank my dissertation committee, especially the late Dr. George Brown, who was the chair and a wonderful mentor, and Dr. Frieda Taub, who was also a wonderful mentor and an inspirational role model. I continue to keep in touch with Dr. Taub.


Although I had a supportive committee and congenial colleagues in Dr. Brown’s lab, I felt isolated as one of the few women at the then College of Fisheries (now SAFS). The atmosphere for women was chilly and unwelcoming. I felt pressured to continually prove myself and to always be “perfect” so that doors would not close for women who came after me. Mentors, friends, the Association for Women in Science, and my determination kept me going. I am happy that there is now good gender balance among graduate students at SAFS and that there are more female faculty than in the 1970s. I hope that the number of female faculty will continue to rise.


 
Fran giving a hands-on demonstration with two Seattle University students


After earning my PhD, I was drawn to environmental problem-solving and embarked on a satisfying 25-year environmental agency career. As a fish biologist for the Washington Department of Fisheries (now Fish and Wildlife), I was especially proud of contributing to preventing the Northern Tier Pipeline Company from constructing an oil pipeline that would have crossed every major salmon-bearing river and stream in Washington  state. The oil spill risks were huge. Other rewarding projects were leading an interagency team in developing and implementing an action plan to control pollution sources and clean up contaminated sites in Sinclair and Dyes Inlets for Washington Department of Ecology, and managing salmon habitat restoration and improvement projects for King County.


In 2004, my career and life took an unexpected turn when my husband and I had the opportunity to teach at Northwest University in Xi’an, China. I created and taught a course about the impacts of urban environmental pollution. In addition to having a fabulous cultural experience, I discovered that I love teaching. After returning to Seattle, I sought regional teaching opportunities that included “Biology, History and Politics of Salmon in the Pacific Northwest” at UW Tacoma and “Impacts of Metals on Aquatic Ecosystems and Human Health” at the University of British Columbia. In 2007, I resigned from my agency job to focus on teaching. The results have been positive and exciting! I am having a wonderful time bringing my work experience and knowledge to the classroom, educating current and future environmental scientists and environmentally aware global citizens. My academic homes are Western Washington University on the Peninsulas and The Evergreen State College Tacoma campus. I also teach courses and give lectures for environmental professionals and the general public about water quality and the impacts of toxic chemicals, especially metals and endocrine disruptor chemicals, on aquatic biota and human health.


I recently presented at a Gordon Research Conference on Endocrine Disruptor Chemicals, which took place in Switzerland. My poster, titled “EDuCation about Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: Bridging the Gap between Scientists and the General Public,” encouraged colleagues to do similar teaching and outreach on this important topic.


 
Fran & her poster at the Gordon Research Conference on Endocrine Disruptor Chemicals


My graduate education at SAFS prepared me well for my environmental agency and teaching careers. Congratulations to SAFS on its 100th anniversary, and best wishes for the next 100 years!


 


 

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Centennial Story 21: Tom Oswold, Jr (Staff 1948-93)

		
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As the School approaches its centennial year (2019), we have been telling the stories of many of the important figures in SAFS’s development and evolution: deans, directors, faculty, and students. In fact, there have been many long-standing staff members who have played significant roles in helping SAFS become a major academic and research institution. Tom Oswold Jr. is one such long-term staff member. He joined SAFS as a transfer student in 1948 and stayed on as a staff member until 1993, when he retired. Tom was born and raised on a farm near Bellingham, but was associated with the Alaska fishery through his father, who worked summers on the canneries in Bristol Bay. Tom began working in Alaska at age 14 and was skippering a fishing boat before he finished high school.  That experience peaked his interest and led him to join the UW School of Fisheries (SOF) in his sophomore year.


 
Tom Oswold (circa 1987)


Because of the skills he had acquired in Alaska, shortly after he came to SOF, he began skippering the R/V Onchoryncus, a 50-foot surplus Naval personnel carrier converted by the UW into a stern trawler. Because the Onchoryncus was limited to short runs in local waters, it quickly became clear that marine research and class operations needed a vessel with greater capabilities. In 1950, the School became the College of Fisheries and acquired the R/V Commando, a 67-foot halibut boat with a deep hull that was capable of extended runs in the open ocean. Running the Commando meant Tom had to hire an engineer, take on charter work for other research organizations, and finally give up on the idea of finishing his degree.


For the next thirty years, Tom took fisheries students and scientists out on Lake Washington, Puget Sound, and the Pacific Coast from Monterey, California, to the Aleutians to catch, count, and tag or dissect fish of multiple species and habitats. His job was to provide a research platform for hundreds of studies and projects undertaken—not only by the School, but also by the Alaska, Oregon, and Federal Fish and Game Departments. The success of many of these projects was predicated on Tom’s ability to find and catch the target species or thoroughly sample the targeted area or habitat to obtain an accurate survey.


Tom took a one-year leave of absence from the School in 1962 to join the United Nations World Health Organization’s Food and Agriculture Department. His project was to bring more modern fishing technology to local fishers on the small island of St. Kitts in the Leeward Islands of the West Indies. At the time, the local fishers were using hand lines from small sailing skiffs to catch grouper and other fish for personal consumption and local sale. He spent the year designing and refitting a small motor boat to use trawl and trolling gear and most important, providing a local fishery with the potential to greatly increase its yield and efficiency.


In 1980, the School retired the Commando when it acquired the R/V Alaska. Tom skippered the Alaska until his retirement in 1993. For almost his entire tenure, Tom was joined by Olaf Rockness (1918–2005), his engineer and deckhand. The two served the School for almost their entire professional careers and witnessed the evolution of the School from its days of focusing on support of the fishing industry to its concentration on environmental and sustainability issues.


 
The R/V Commando off the old Fisheries Building


Tom was an integral, though perhaps less visible, part of nearly half of the one hundred years we are now celebrating.


Tom passed away on April 18, 2018. His ashes were scattered off the Oceanography dock where he spent so much of his life.


 


 

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Centennial Story 20: Kendra L. Daly (MS, 1991)

		
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I originally came to UW as an undergraduate and received a BS degree in Oceanography. I then worked in the Oceanography Department for several years, participating on oceanographic expeditions in Puget Sound, the tropical Pacific, and the Arctic and Antarctic regions. When I


 
Kendra Daly


decided to go back to school, I enrolled in the School of Fisheries to obtain a better background in quantitative science, population dynamics, and animal behavior. My advisor was Bob Francis, and Tom Quinn served on my supervisory committee. Bob had a great group of students at that time. In the small world category, it turned out that another student, Ric Brodeur (PhD, 1990) had married someone I knew from junior high school in Connecticut! I was not Bob’s typical student. I worked full time in Oceanography and went to school part time. I had National Science Foundation (NSF) funding for a project in the Southern Ocean, which formed the basis for my MS thesis. I investigated the role of sea ice ecosystem dynamics on the distribution and behavior of Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, which, while not a fish, is a commercially important crustacean. I finished my MS degree in 1990 and then went to the University of Tennessee to work with a group of polar oceanographers. I received my PhD in 1995 in Ecology, with a research focus on Arctic sea ice ecosystems.


After a post-doctoral fellowship at the Department of Energy, I worked at the NSF as a program director in Biological Oceanography for four years. It was a terrific experience that I highly recommend. I then accepted a faculty position at the University of South Florida in 2001. About that time, I became involved in the planning and development of NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). Observing systems provide a continual presence in the oceans to capture episodic events and long-term trends of environmental data. I went on to spend much of the next 17 years working on this project, including a stint as director. The OOI is now successfully deployed and has a variety of moorings and sensors located along the Washington and Oregon coasts, including a fiber optic cable stretching across the Juan de Fuca plate to Axial Volcano. These data are freely available to anyone on the OOI website and can be used to assess environmental conditions for commercial and recreational fisheries. In addition to working on the OOI and in polar systems, I have investigated the impacts of oxygen minimum zones on marine ecosystems in the tropical Pacific and participated in both the IXTOC-I and Deepwater Horizon oil spill response efforts.


Despite my broad interests, my fisheries background has not gone to waste. I was involved in the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) and Comparative Analysis of Marine Ecosystems Organization (CAMEO) programs, which had strong fisheries components. I have had students work on aspects of blue crab and stone crab fisheries in Florida. The statistics courses I took at UW were essential to my career. My favorite course was Tom Quinn’s fish behaviour class. Our class project was to pick an animal at the Seattle aquarium and quantify the amount of time it spent on various activities. I chose a reef fish, which opened my eyes to the complexity of behaviors exhibited by fish. This was a valuable lesson and later changed how I have viewed Antarctic krill, which are very adaptable, with very plastic behaviors, and still confound researchers’ expectations today. Thanks to Bob Francis and Tom Quinn for your help and support!


 
Kendra at Port Lockroy, Antarctica, in the 1980’s


 


 


 


 

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Oysters and eelgrass help each other out under increasing carbon dioxide levels

		
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Increasing human output of carbon dioxide results in higher temperatures and in ocean acidification—the lowering of ocean pH and other chemical changes. Oysters are threatened by ocean acidification, while eelgrass may benefit from the higher carbon dioxide levels in the water. A new laboratory study asks whether culturing Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) together with eelgrass (Zostera marina) can help both out. The idea is that the eelgrass uses up carbon dioxide in the water, which should buffer the effects of ocean acidification and increase pH levels; while oysters filter disease-causing organisms out of the water, which should improve eelgrass growth. In a series of recent experiments that tested these ideas, eelgrass wasting disease declined under higher carbon dioxide conditions, and was even more dramatically cut in the presence of oysters, resulting in faster eelgrass growth. In addition, in the presence of eelgrass, pH did increase, but the increase in oyster mass was not statistically greater than expected by chance. The new study was conducted by Maya Groner while at the University of Prince Edward Island, together with coauthors that include SAFS professor Carolyn Friedman, and is published in the journal Ecology.


 
Growing oysters with eelgrass should have two main effects: eelgrass uses carbon dioxide, thus increasing pH and reducing the effects of ocean acidification on oyster growth; and oysters filter out pathogens including those that cause eelgrass wasting disease, benefiting eelgrass growth.


 


 
When cultured with oysters, eelgrass grows faster (top panel), and eelgrass wasting disease (EWD, bottom panel) is greatly reduced, especially when carbon dioxide (pCO2) levels are high.


 


 
Levels of pH increase when eelgrass is grown, reducing the effects of acidification on oysters.

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Intensive use of lake water affects freshwater food webs

		
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Many lakes are important sources of water for agriculture and other purposes, while also supporting diverse ecosystems. In a new study, a comparison is made between the food webs of two natural lakes that were dammed early in the 20th century. The neighboring lakes are nearly identical except that one (Lake Keechelus) experiences rapid drawdown of water beginning early summer while the other (Lake Kachess) remains fuller and fluctuates less in water height during summer, but is lowered to a lesser extent beginning early fall. This water management scheme helps balance water needs for irrigation and threatened salmon downstream. A comparison of the food webs in the two lakes reveals that the more intensively used lake has a less diverse food web (termed “trophic compression”). Thus water use, like other human disturbances such as warming, excessive nutrients, and invasive species, results in lake ecosystems that are less able to cope with external stress. The new paper by Adam Hansen, a SAFS alum, two SAFS post-bachelor researchers Jennifer Gardner and Kristin Connelly, Matt Polacek, and David Beauchamp, appears in the journal Ecosphere.

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
LIME: a new model for assessing the status of data-poor fisheries

		
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Formal stock assessments are conducted for many large and valuable fisheries, but these typically require reliable catch data, estimates of trends in fish numbers, and age data from caught fish. In data-poor fisheries, these kinds of data are not available, resulting in difficulties in assessing whether they are overfished or sustainably fished. Now a new model called LIME has been developed that accounts for variability in recruitment (the number of baby fish produced each year), and can assess status from samples of the lengths of fish in each year, together with whatever additional information is available. Applying LIME to simulated data (representing “truth”) shows that it can estimate fishery status, especially for short-lived species, provided good information is available for growth rate parameters, and there are multiple years of length data. The LIME model was developed as part of Merrill Rudd’s PhD dissertation at SAFS, together with James Thorson of NOAA, and is published in the Canadian Journal of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.


 
Performance of the LIME model under different conditions where model parameters are too low, just right, and too high (columns); for species that are short-lived, medium-lived, or long-lived (rows); and for two variants of catch time series (red, blue). Relative errors close to zero indicate the model has good performance for that scenario.

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Fish and chips: DNA analysis on a chip can separate endangered wild steelhead trout from hatchery steelhead trout

		
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Many populations of native steelhead trout in the Pacific Northwest US are threatened by disease, habitat loss, poor ocean survival, and genetic mixing with hatchery steelhead trout. Steelhead are a form of rainbow trout that migrate out to the ocean when young, and return to spawn, just like many salmon species. Hatchery-produced steelhead have lower survival in the wild because they become less afraid of predators; one of the resulting concerns is that interbreeding between hatchery and wild steelhead will erode the natural fitness of wild steelhead and hinder their recovery. However, it can be difficult to separate wild and hatchery steelhead genetically. Now a new rapid genetic technique is applied to steelhead that uses a single sequencing chip to gather information on more than 57,000 locations where DNA differs among populations in trout and salmon species. The new technique greatly simplifies genetic analysis of steelhead comparing to whole-genome sequencing, requiring less than 1% as much storage space and computer time for the analysis. The study found 360 DNA locations that differed between wild and hatchery steelhead and could be used to separate these populations. The research was conducted by SAFS postdoc Wesley Larson, SAFS professor James Seeb, Kenneth Warheit of WDFW, and their coauthors, and appears in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Steepness, lakes, and forest cover are the main factors influencing salmon-stream temperatures

		
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Salmon returning to streams and lakes in Southeast Alaska are affected greatly by water temperatures both in winter and summer, and these temperatures are projected to increase given climate warming. Changes in water temperature affects the time it takes for salmon eggs to hatch and emerge, and the timing of salmon returning to each stream, as they seek to avoid dangerous peak stream temperatures. Thus predictions of the effect of climate warming on salmon populations relies critically on predictions of water temperatures. Now, a new study identifies the most important factors that can be used to predict changes in water temperature in the future in these salmon-producing streams and lakes. In summer, streams in areas with shallow gradients and more lakes had both higher and more variable temperatures; in winter, temperatures were higher in areas with steep gradients that had greater forest cover and more lakes. Thus both landscape features and forest cover influence stream temperature, and hence the productivity of salmon produced by each watershed. The research was led by Michael Winfree; coauthors include SAFS professor Daniel Schindler; and it appears in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

	

	

			

	


					


	

		
Traditional knowledge about polar bears adds to climate change evidence in Greenland

		
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Interviews with 25 Inuit polar bear hunters in East Greenland provide a wealth of knowledge about changes in sea ice, warming, and polar bear distribution and trends. Evidence of climate change reported by the hunters included receding glaciers, higher temperatures, and the loss of sea ice. These changes made it harder for them to access sea ice, because dog sledges are no longer safe given wide patches of open water during months when sea ice used to be safe to travel over. In addition, about 80% of hunters reported that more polar bears are entering their communities, which they attributed to both the loss of sea ice and the introduction of quota limits on polar bear hunts. The research on traditional Inuit knowledge was conducted by SAFS and Applied Physics Lab professor Kristin Laidre, Allison Northey, and Fernando Ugarte, and is published in Frontiers in Marine Science.


 
Change in hunting patterns in the region of Ittoqqortoormiit, showing how past hunting areas (green, 10-15 yr ago) are greatly reduced in recent years (pink).