Beachwalkers Wanted For COASST

Photo: S. Oliveira/COASST

Photo: B. Blackie/COASST

The Coastal Obser­va­tion and Seabird Sur­vey Team (COASST) will deliv­er two free train­ing ses­sions: one focused on beached birds and one focused on marine debris. The Beached Bird train­ing will be held in East­sound, WA on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 28 and the Marine Debris train­ing will be held in Fri­day Har­bor, WA on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 29.

COASST is a cit­i­zen sci­ence project of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in part­ner­ship with state, trib­al, and fed­er­al agen­cies, envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, and com­mu­ni­ty groups. COASST believes cit­i­zens of coastal com­mu­ni­ties are essen­tial sci­en­tif­ic part­ners in mon­i­tor­ing marine ecosys­tem health. By col­lab­o­rat­ing with cit­i­zens, nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment agen­cies and envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, COASST works to trans­late long-term mon­i­tor­ing into effec­tive marine con­ser­va­tion solu­tions. Cur­rent­ly, more than 800 par­tic­i­pants sur­vey beach­es in Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, Cal­i­for­nia, and Alaska.

COASST par­tic­i­pants help make a dif­fer­ence for the envi­ron­ment by col­lect­ing data on beach-cast car­cass­es of marine birds or on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of marine debris to help address impor­tant marine con­ser­va­tion issues and pro­tect marine resources. In the COASST Beached Bird pro­gram, par­tic­i­pants col­lect data on beach-cast seabirds to estab­lish the base­line pat­tern of beached bird mor­tal­i­ty on North Pacif­ic beach­es. In the COASST Marine Debris pro­gram, par­tic­i­pants char­ac­ter­ize and mea­sure the abun­dance of marine debris to increase our under­stand­ing of the source and trans­port path­ways of debris, as well as to the poten­tial harm to peo­ple, wildlife, and local coastal ecosystems.

The Beached Bird train­ing ses­sion in East­sound will be held at the Orcas Island Library (500 Rose Street, East­sound, WA 98245) from 10:00 am – 4:00 PM on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 28. The Marine Debris train­ing ses­sion in Fri­day Har­bor will be held at the Fri­day Har­bor Lab­o­ra­to­ries — Com­mons (620 Uni­ver­si­ty Road, Fri­day Har­bor, WA 98261).

There will be a short break in the mid­dle of the ses­sion for lunch, so please bring your own sack lunch, or mon­ey to pur­chase food in the area. Vol­un­teers need NO pri­or expe­ri­ence with sci­en­tif­ic data col­lec­tion, just a com­mit­ment to sur­vey a spe­cif­ic beach at least once a month. Train­ing activ­i­ties take place indoors.

Reserve your spot by call­ing COASST at 206–221-6893 or by email­ing coasst@uw.edu. For more infor­ma­tion on COASST: Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, School of Aquat­ic & Fish­ery Sci­ences, Box 355020, Seat­tle, WA 98195–5020; Phone: 206–221-6893; Web­site: www.coasst.org.

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