Front and center in Aaron Wirsing’s office is a framed and colorful drawing of killer whales chasing down dinner—seals, fish, dolphins, other frightened sea creatures. The artist? A 10-year-old Aaron, inspired by the nature television shows of his youth. “Predators always fascinated me. Nothing’s changed!,” said Wirsing. Now an assistant professor in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, he still pursues his passion for predators.
Read more »College Advisory Board member Denis Hayes in Northwest Prime Time
The College of the Environment is fortunate to have a tremendously talented group of individuals that make up our Advisory Board–and Denis Hayes is one of them. He is the President of the Bullitt Foundation, an organization whose mission is to safeguard the natural environment by promoting responsible human activities and sustainable communities in the Pacific Northwest. Notably, the Bullitt Foundation’s headquarters are housed in the brand new Bullitt Center, billed as the greenest commercial building in the world.
Read more »Scientists up their ability to track salmon through DNA ‘fin-printing’
A partnership between the University of Washington and Alaska Department of Fish and Game has yielded a major breakthrough in DNA ‘fin-printing’ this week, improving the ability to conserve diminishing stocks of Chinook salmon. Implementing the new technique will allow scientists and managers to track specific stocks ensuring that no specific stock is overharvested. The results have been published in the journals Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences and Evolutionary Applications.
Read more »Dee Boersma talks penguins at the Future of Ice Speaker Series
The fifth event in the Future of Ice Speaker Series featured Dee Boersma, a UW scientist who has spent her career studying the ecology of our world’s penguins. Much of her time is spent in Punto Tombo, Argentina, focused on a large population of Magellanic penguins. She and her team have collected an impressive time-series of data on these birds–over 30 years–which has proved instrumental in understanding penguin ecology and the pressures that affect them.
Read more »Wolves and the ecology of fear
Does “the big bad wolf” play an important role in the modern-day food web? In this video we journey to Washington State’s Cascade Mountains, where the return of wolves could have a profound impact on a vast wilderness area. We meet up with biologist Aaron Wirsing to explore why wolves and other top predators are needed for diverse ecosystems to flourish.
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