What’s Washed In: Seabirds, Marine Debris, and Citizen Science – Feiro Speaker Series

Since the first surveys began in 1999, COASST has steadily expanded from a nucleus of 5 beaches along the southern outer coast of Washington State to nearly 450 beaches spread across northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. From 12 stalwart participants who worked tirelessly to invent and refine the COASST system of carcass identification, COASST has grown to more than 1,000 participants, making us the largest beached bird network in the world. Julia K. Parrish is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of the Environment at the University of Washington, and a Lowell A. and Frankie L. Wakefield Professor of Ocean Fishery Sciences. She is a marine biologist, a conservation biologist, and a specialist in animal aggregation. For more than 20 years, Julia has conducted research on seabirds, focused on the natural and human-caused factors causing population decline. Julia is also the Executive Director of the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), a west-coast citizen science program involving hundreds of participants collecting monthly data on the identity and abundance of beach-cast birds and marine debris, with the goal of creating the definitive baseline against which the impacts of any near-shore catastrophe could be measured.