It’s hard to think small in Alaska. The largest of the United States is home to North America’s highest mountain range. It’s a place where undammed rivers run more than 1000 kilometers, glaciers collapse into the ocean, and polar bears roam. Daniel Schindler, however, is here hunting for something the size of a grain of rice.

Please join us in congratulating Sarah Converse who will be receiving the Department of the Interior’s Distinguished Service Award in Washington D.C. on September 12th.

Last year, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington (UW) discovered that when white sharks are ready to feast, they ride large, swirling ocean currents known as eddies to fast-track their way to the ocean twilight zone—a layer of the ocean between 200 and 1000 meters deep (656 to 3280 feet) containing the largest fish biomass on Earth. Now, according to a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists are seeing a similar activity with blue sharks, which dive through these natural, spinning tunnels at mealtime. The eddies draw warm water deep into the twilight zone where temperatures are normally considerably colder, allowing blue sharks to forage across areas of the open ocean that are often characterized by low prey abundance in surface waters.

A multi-institution team consisting of the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (UW SAFS) Professor John Horne will deploy experimental technology next week to explore the deep scattering layers of the ocean. In addition to Horne, the UW team includes Ross Hytnen Jr. and summer intern Raymond Surya (a JISAO intern from the University of Michigan). Horne’s lab at SAFS uses active acoustic technologies to count and characterize aquatic organism distributions and dynamics throughout the world. 

One of the most established hands-on, outdoor citizen science projects is the University of Washington-based Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, COASST, which trains beachgoers along the West Coast, from California to Alaska, to monitor their local beach for dead birds. With about 4,500 participants in its 21-year history and roughly 800 active participants today, COASST’s long-term success is now the subject of scientific study in its own right. What makes people join citizen science projects, and what motivates people to stick with them over years?

Coral reefs are retreating from equatorial waters and establishing new reefs in more temperate regions, according to new research published July 4 in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. The researchers found that the number of young corals on tropical reefs has declined by 85% — and doubled on subtropical reefs — during the last four decades.

The six months since we published the previous issue of the newsletter have been exhilarating, exhausting, and just plain amazing as I hope you will see from these articles.

Just beyond where conventional scuba divers can go is an area of the ocean that still is largely unexplored. In waters this deep — about 100 to at least 500 feet below the surface — little to no light breaks through.

“Art and science collide magnificently in this monumental three-volume celebration of the 260 species of fishes that infuse the inland marine waters of Washington State and British Columbia, with hidden beauty, remarkable diversity and intriguing ways of living. This long-awaited work is a must-have not just for serious scientists and devotees of exquisite natural history artistry, but for any and all who find joy in exploring the wonders of nature.”―Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer in Residence, Founder, Mission Blue

Hundreds of harbor seals live in Iliamna Lake, the largest body of freshwater in Alaska and one of the most productive systems for sockeye salmon in the Bristol Bay region. These lake seals are a robust yet highly unusual and cryptic posse. Although how the seals first colonized the lake remains a mystery, it is thought that sometime in the distant past, a handful of harbor seals likely migrated from the ocean more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) upriver to the lake, where they eventually grew to a consistent group of about 400. These animals are important for Alaska Native subsistence hunting, and hold a top spot in the lake’s diverse food web.