Feb 27, 2018

Largest Chinook salmon disappearing from West Coast

Chinook salmon, shorter in length than in earlier years, swim in Oregon’s McKenzie River.

The largest and oldest Chinook salmon — fish also known as “kings” and prized for their exceptional size — have mostly disappeared along the West Coast. That’s the main finding of a new University of Washington-led study published Feb. 27 in the journal Fish and Fisheries. The researchers analyzed nearly 40 years of data from hatchery and wild Chinook populations from California to Alaska, looking broadly at patterns that emerged over the course of four decades and across thousands of miles of coastline.

Three UW Innovation Awards given to UW Environment faculty

College of the Environment faculty received all three of the University of Washington’s Innovation Awards for 2018. The awards are designed to stimulate innovation among faculty from a range of disciplines and to reward some of their most novel ideas, and are made possible by generous donors. Knut Christianson and Michelle Koutnik from the Earth and Space Sciences, along with David Shean from Civil and Environmental Engineering, were awarded $300,000 over two years to “build a digital glacier time machine” that will generate a high-resolution, 3-D time series of how glaciers have changed over time to help understand the future of water resources in the western United States.

Field journal: Practicing geology in Big Sky Country

Earth and Space Sciences' student Mary Alice Benson spent an entire summer studying geology at UW Environment's field camp. This is her field notebook.

Beluga whales dive deeper, longer to find food in Arctic

Nine blue whales swimming together in dark blue water.

The reduction of Arctic sea ice has a clear impact on animals that rely on frozen surfaces for feeding, mating and migrating. But sea ice loss is changing Arctic habitat and affecting other species in more indirect ways, new research finds. Beluga whales that spend summers feeding in the Arctic must dive deeper and longer to find food than in previous years, according to a new analysis led by University of Washington researchers.

Aquatic and Fishery Sciences' Chelsea Wood awarded Sloan Fellowship

Chelsea Wood, an assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, is among five faculty members across the University of Washington that have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Announced on Feb. 15, Sloan Fellowships are open to scholars in eight scientific and technical fields — chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences and physics — and honor those early-career researchers whose achievements mark them as the next generation of scientific leaders.