When Penny Dalton accepted a prestigious Sea Grant ocean policy fellowship during graduate school, it forever changed the course of her career. Instead of focusing on fisheries research, she landed on Capitol Hill, in federal agencies and oceanographic associations and, ultimately, to Washington Sea Grant at the University of Washington, where she has served as director for 12 years. Dalton will retire May 1.
Read the Q&A at UW Today »Partnering with indigenous communities to anticipate and adapt to ocean change
The productive ocean off Washington state’s Olympic Coast supports an abundant web of life including kelp forests, fish, shellfish, seabirds and marine mammals. The harvest and use of these treaty-protected marine resources have been central to the local tribes’ livelihoods, food security and cultural practices for thousands of years. But ocean acidification is changing the chemistry of these waters, putting many coastal species — and the human communities that depend upon them — under threat.
Read more at UW Today »Preventing a crustacean invasion
Washington Sea Grant’s Emily Grason and its Crab Team volunteers are on a mission to protect the Salish Sea from one of the world’s worst invasive species — the European green crab.
Read more »Washington Sea Grant receives $1.1 million in federal funding for aquaculture research
Aquaculture has been a mainstay of Washington’s economy since the state’s founding, and there is still potential for more growth. Three federal grants announced this week will provide total funding of $1.1 million to Washington Sea Grant, based at the University of Washington’s College of the Environment, for research that will sustainably further shellfish and finfish aquaculture in the state. The grants were awarded through two competitions designed to identify projects that will lead to the responsible development of the domestic shellfish, finfish and seaweed aquaculture industries.
UW Today »Pumping up a new record: 10 million gallons of sewage diverted from Washington waters in 2016
In 2016, the Washington Clean Vessel Act, a joint project of Washington State Parks, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Washington Sea Grant, helped divert a record 10 million gallons of raw sewage from Puget Sound, Lake Washington and other state waterways that previously would have been dumped into vulnerable waters. Instead it was collected for safe onshore treatment. This diversion is largely a result of training, outreach and federal funds provided by U.S.
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