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How might whales, seals, sea lions, dolphins and other marine mammals fare 100 years from now if our human population and demand on the world’s resources both double? The question will be among those explored during the annual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists being held in Seattle for the first time ever.

A report in the May 14 issue of Science, describing a novel approach to reconstructing paleovegetation, presents the first continuous vegetation record from the Australian interior extending back to 65,000 years ago.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is expected later this month to announce its decision about listing more than a dozen West Coast salmon and steelhead populations under the federal Endangered Species Act. University of Washington experts may be able to help reporters with general information on such things as salmon health and how human activities impact salmon habitat.

Teams from Sedro-Woolley High School claimed first and third places, and a team from Garfield High School placed second Saturday during the state’s Ocean Science Bowl sponsored by the University of Washington’s College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences

A lecture series celebrating the “International Year of the Ocean” will feature UW faculty who’ve traveled to the seafloor in tiny submersibles, studied salmon from the wilds of Alaska to the heart of Seattle, and collected samples from some of the coldest and hottest spots on earth in search of unusual microorganisms.

Two days after their most recent research piece appeared in the journal Nature, University of Washington oceanography professors Steve Emerson and Paul Quay set sail on the UW’s Thomas G. Thompson to seek more answers about subtropical oceans and how they absorb carbon dioxide, one of the so-called greenhouse gases.

Ferry passengers traveling to and from Bainbridge Island no longer see the remnants of the last creosote plant on the south shore of Eagle Harbor. On shore, oily wastes foul the ground water and the soil below it, in some spots going deeper than 70 feet. Those marine sediments have polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in concentrations a hundred times greater than clean areas of Puget Sound.