Latest news with #SeadocSociety
Vancouver Sun
3 days ago
- Science
- Vancouver Sun
Meet Eba, B.C.'s whale-poop-sniffing dog
Eba the dog started her life on the streets of Sacramento. Now, she spends much of her time at the front of a boat in the Salish Sea, sniffing out killer whale poop. Eba's owner is Deborah Giles, a killer whale scientist with the Seadoc Society, which uses science and education to advance the health of marine wildlife and their ecosystems. The pair will be on Pender Island Friday evening, where Giles is scheduled to give a talk called From Poop to Policy , about what feces can tell us about the health of individual southern resident killer whales and the endangered population as a whole. Giles' sister found Eba in Sacramento and Giles adopted her, bringing her to San Juan Island, where she lives. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. She and her husband, Jim Rappold, trained Eba to pick up the scent of whale poop using a previously collected sample, teaching her to think of play time when she catches a whiff of the marine mammal's excrement. The whale-poop-sniffing canine stands at the front of the research boat while Giles and her husband drive downwind of a path left by killer whales. 'In a nutshell, we follow her nose to the scat sample,' Giles said. An ideal sample looks like thick pancake batter and is about the size of a saucer for a tea cup splayed out on the surface of the water, but it can also be brown and as small as a lentil, she said. Giles then scoops the poop out of the ocean using a lab-quality plastic beaker on the end of a pole, skimming the surface of the water. She decants the fecal matter into tubes, which are put into a centrifuge on the boat and spun to separate the sample from sea water. The samples are kept in a cooler until they're back on land and put in a deep freezer. 'Those are the ones that we love the most,' she said. While there are other scientists collecting and analyzing whale poop, Giles said hers is the only team she knows of that works with a scent-detection dog. The method allows them to collect scat without getting close to the animals and disturbing them with their presence. Without the dog, collecting fecal samples generally requires following closely behind whales, but because one of the main threats to the endangered species is vessel disturbance, she doesn't want to be part of the problem, Giles said. The samples are tested for hormones indicating stress, pregnancy and nutrition, as well as toxicants. Giles also collects breath droplets hanging in the air using a drone that swoops down after a whale has exhaled and dived back down. 'We're trying to create individual health records. Just like you have a health record with your doctor,' she said. 'It's really trying to get a very, very clear idea of what's happening with the individual whales.' The aim is to take those individual records and look at the collective health of the southern resident killer whales, which face threats due to lack of prey, particularly Chinook salmon, physical and noise disturbance from vessels and chemicals in their environment and food chain, Giles said. 'All of that information is information that we can give to managers in Canada and in the U.S. to help drive policy to hopefully recover these whales,' she said. If the whales are healthy and thriving, it means the habitat is healthy, which is good news for people as well, she said, because any toxic chemicals affecting killer whales also affect anyone who consumes fish from the Salish Sea. Giles' talk, part of Ocean Week Victoria, runs from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at 4418 Bedwell Harbour Rd.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
WA researchers awaiting test results for mysterious deaths of beavers along Salish Sea
The Brief Researchers in San Juan County are calling on the public for help after multiple beavers showed up dead along the shores of the Salish Sea. It's currently unclear if the creatures died from toxins, disease, human influence, or climate-related stress. FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. - Researchers need the public's help solving a mystery in San Juan County. Beavers are showing up dead along the shores of the Salish Sea. It's an unusual sighting for the creatures that are so vital to Washington's marine environment. What they're saying "Beavers are critical to the environment here and in the climate resiliency, especially in these tidal areas like the estuaries along the Salish Sea," said Erin Casellas, field operations coordinator for The Whale Museum. "The Chinook Salmon smolt depend on the habitats that the beavers create. They're building their dams, and in turn these Chinook salmon are what many other species, like the endangered Southern Resident killer whales are also depending on." Experts with the museum, located in Friday Harbor, are currently waiting for test results on what killed the beavers. Researchers said their team isn't sure if the creatures died from toxins, disease, human influence, or climate-related stress. Casellas said, whatever it is, they're hoping to learn answers soon to take preventative measures to better protect them and the entire Salish Sea. "A lot of us think of them as just freshwater rodents that are hanging out and building dams and creating these awesome wetland habitats. But they are really critical parts of the marine environment," said Casellas. The San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network is a program of the museum in collaboration with Seadoc Society. Casellas said the network doesn't usually focus on beavers. However, in October 2024, the health and safety of the creatures got the network's attention. "A very large, about 60-pound male was found on a beach on Orcas Island. Seadoc Society got that report, and they collected the beaver and froze it," said Casellas. In March, the researchers received three calls for dead beavers found on San Juan beaches. "In three weeks, we picked up three different ones. None of them presented any significant external lesions. So, from the outside we didn't see any big cuts or scratches on them," said Casellas. According to one comment on the network's Facebook post, a person wrote they saw a dead beaver in a freshwater wetland in Snohomish County. What's next Unsure what was killing the beavers, Casellas said their team of experts sent frozen tissue samples on Wednesday to the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostics Laboratory for answers. "This testing is so important," said Casellas. "By testing different tissues from test beavers, we're able to see if it's bacteria, a virus, a fungal infection, something else. And then from there we know who we need to involve to hopefully prevent this from happening more." While their team waits for the test results of the mysterious deaths, Casellas said the researchers are also asking the public for help. She said this can be done by staying a safe distance away from the dead animal and filing an online report to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. "If people are finding dead beavers in other areas, we want to know these reports. The more dead animals that we can respond to and test, hopefully the more answers we can find," said Casellas. To learn more about beavers along the Salish Sea, the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network is posting educational segments on its Facebook page this week. The Source Information in this story is from the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network, The Whale Museum and FOX 13 Seattle reporting. ICE arrests 37 people at Bellingham, WA roofing company 7 million pounds of WA food at risk as federal cuts loom 1 juvenile dead, 2 in critical condition in Skyway, WA New study reveals you need $169K to be financially happy in Seattle 12 WA residents made Forbes's list of 2025 billionaires Everything to know about the Washington State Spring Fair Seattle Restaurant Week 2025 by neighborhood To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter. Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national coverage, plus 24/7 streaming coverage from across the nation.
