COASST to hold beached bird and marine debris training

The Coastal Obser­va­tion and Seabird Sur­vey Team shares news about their upcom­ing train­ing ses­sion on San Juan Island.

On Feb. 5, the Coastal Obser­va­tion and Seabird Sur­vey Team will deliv­er a free train­ing ses­sion for mem­bers of the San Juan Island com­mu­ni­ty. COASST is focused on the inter­sec­tion of sci­ence, con­ser­va­tion, and com­mu­ni­ties. COASST par­tic­i­pants help make a dif­fer­ence for the envi­ron­ment by col­lect­ing data on beach-cast car­cass­es of marine birds and marine debris on a month­ly basis to estab­lish the base­line pat­tern of beached bird mor­tal­i­ty and debris depo­si­tion on North Pacif­ic beaches.

Through an inter­ac­tive, hands-on work­shop, trainees will become acquaint­ed with COASST sur­vey pro­to­cols, have a chance to learn more about the seabirds that live in their area, and learn about the effects of marine debris on seal­ife. The COASST train­ing pro­vides par­tic­i­pants with the tools to mon­i­tor for poten­tial changes in the marine envi­ron­ment and pro­mote stew­ard­ship of local marine resources.

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 res­i­dents of coastal com­mu­ni­ties are essen­tial sci­en­tif­ic part­ners in mon­i­tor­ing marine ecosys­tem health. By col­lab­o­rat­ing with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment agen­cies and envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, COASST works to trans­late long-term mon­i­tor­ing into effec­tive marine con­ser­va­tion solu­tions. Cur­rent­ly, near­ly 1,000 par­tic­i­pants sur­vey beach­es in Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, Cal­i­for­nia, and Alaska.

The train­ing ses­sion will be held on Sun­day, Feb. 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fri­day Har­bor Lab Com­mons — 620 Uni­ver­si­ty Rd. There will be a short break in the mid­dle of each ses­sion for lunch, so please bring your own sack lunch, or mon­ey to pur­chase food in the area. Par­tic­i­pants need no pri­or expe­ri­ence with sci­en­tif­ic data col­lec­tion, just a com­mit­ment to sur­vey a spe­cif­ic beach at least once a month.

Masks are rec­om­mend­ed, but not manda­to­ry. Stay­ing safe is our top pri­or­i­ty and we will have dis­in­fec­tant wipes and san­i­tiz­er on hand.

For more infor­ma­tion and to reserve your train­ing spot, call COASST at 206–221-6893 or email coasst@uw.edu. More infor­ma­tion about the COASST pro­gram can be found on our web­site.

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