People often visit U.S. national parks to catch a glimpse of wildlife. But how does our presence impact the animals we hope to see?

National park traffic has grown steadily over the past decade, and popular parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone can easily see over a million visitors a year. In these heavily used areas, one might expect animals to change their behavior to avoid humans.

But a new 91̽��-led study has found that even in remote, rarely visited national parks, the presence of even just a few humans impacts the activity of wildlife that live there. Nearly any level of human activity in a protected area like a national park can alter the behavior of animals there, the study found. The was published Oct. 13 in the journal People and Nature.

“There’s been increasing recognition of how much just the presence of humans in these places, and our recreating there, can impact wildlife,” said senior author , associate professor in the 91̽��School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. “These results are striking in showing that really any level of human activity can have an effect on wildlife.”

The research team based its study in Glacier Bay National Park, a coastal area in southeast Alaska that is accessible only by boat or plane. Most visitors arrive on cruise ships, but the boats don’t dock on shore, and the park has very little human foot traffic. Because so few people visit each year — only about 40,000 but increasing — the park was an ideal place to locate this study, Prugh explained.

“Glacier Bay is a great park to explore what the lower limits are where humans start to affect wildlife behavior,” Prugh said.

The researchers worked with the national park’s staff to design and implement an experiment that compared wildlife activity in areas used frequently by humans to areas where people were absent. They installed 40 motion-activated cameras across 10 sites to capture detections of people and four animal species — wolves, black bears, brown bears and moose — over two summers. By controlling where and when people could access certain areas of Glacier Bay and then measuring wildlife responses to the differing levels of human activity, the researchers identified two important thresholds.

First, if humans were present in an area, the cameras detected fewer than five animals per week across all four species studied. In most cases, this likely meant that animals avoided areas where humans were present. Second, in backcountry areas, wildlife detections dropped to zero each week once outdoor recreation levels reached the equivalent of about 40 visitors per week.

The researchers were surprised by the apparent low tolerance wildlife had for the presence of people nearby.

“It was eye-opening to see the number of wildlife sightings we are ‘missing’ just by recreating in backcountry areas of Glacier Bay,” said lead author , who completed this work as a 91̽��graduate student. “I was surprised that for all four species, wildlife detections were always highest when there wasn’t any human activity. So many people visit national parks for the chance to view wildlife, and that desire alone may reduce the chance of it happening.”

Though all four species showed some change in activity due to humans, wolves were most likely to disappear from cameras when people were around. Brown bears were the least impacted by human presence. Moose, however, were more active during the times of day and locations where people were seen. The researchers hypothesize that moose might be using humans as a protective shield from predators, opting to align their active hours with humans to avoid becoming prey.

The researchers expect that in parks where animals are more accustomed to seeing people, at least some individual animals won’t react as strongly to humans as in Glacier Bay. But the findings do shed light on a reality that’s likely playing out at national parks and wilderness areas across the country: More people are visiting these areas than ever before, and the presence of humans is almost certainly impacting the behavior of animals that live there.

“I expect that similar results could be found in other national parks, particularly those with relatively low visitation. I wouldn’t be surprised if more and more people seek out less popular national parks to explore, which will have interesting and important implications for park management and wildlife,” Sytsma said.

National parks and wilderness areas aren’t just seeing more visitors during the high season. More people are opting to use the trail systems during less-busy times to avoid crowds. Additionally, some parks are expanding their trail networks to accommodate more visitors.

The authors hope this study can help park managers consider different approaches to making parks accessible both to humans and animals. For example, managers could consider concentrating trails and human use in certain areas to reduce their total footprint, or put restrictions on the time of year or days in which people can visit.

“Our findings lend support to concentrating human activities in some areas, because if you’re going to go above zero human activity and it’s going to have an impact, you might as well go way above zero in some areas and then have other areas where you have almost no human activity,” Prugh said. “In those areas, then, wildlife can live their natural lives unaffected by people.”

Co-authors are at the 91̽��and at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. This research was funded by the National Park Service.

For more information, contact Prugh at lprugh@uw.edu and Sytsma at mirasytsma@gmail.com.

Animals that live in groups tend to be more protected from predators. That idea might be common sense, but it’s difficult to test for some species, especially for wild populations of fish that live in the ocean.

A new 91̽�� study that leverages historical data has found unique support for the “safety in numbers” hypothesis by showing that Pacific salmon in larger groups have lower risk of being eaten by predators. But for some salmon species, schooling comes at the cost of competition for food, and those fish may trade safety for a meal. The was published June 29 in the journal Science Advances.

“With salmon, most people think of them spawning in freshwater streams, but there’s also this huge amount of time they spend in the ocean feeding and growing,” said lead author , a doctoral student in the UW’s interdisciplinary Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program and the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “One of the reasons why this study is so unique is that we essentially can’t observe these fish at all in their natural ocean environment, and yet we’re able to pull out these really strong results on how grouping affects predation risk and foraging success for individual fish using this incredibly valuable dataset.”

The researchers looked at four species of Pacific salmon — sockeye, chum, coho and pink — drawing on an international fisheries dataset collected for these species from 1956 to 1991. While their individual life histories vary by species, all salmon are born in freshwater streams, then migrate to the ocean to feed and grow before returning to their home streams to lay eggs, spawn and die, continuing the lifecycle for the next generation.

This study relied on analyzing existing historical data in new ways. For more than four decades the UW’s Fisheries Research Institute in partnership with the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission recorded salmon catch data across the North Pacific Ocean as part of managing each species. The study’s authors analyzed catch data from — fishing gear that involves dropping a net and capturing all of the fish in a relatively small volume of water. By looking at numbers of fish caught in one of these nets, the researchers could estimate the size of the schools in which each fish had been swimming.

Additionally, the historical data included careful records of predator wounds on the salmon, plus the stomach contents for a subset of the fish caught. In this way, the researchers could estimate both predator encounters and feeding success for salmon across 45 years, spanning the entirety of the North Pacific Ocean — making this a unique and valuable data set.

“It was serendipitous that these data were available. They suggest that salmon are social during the ocean stage of their life and reveal the benefits and costs of this sociality,” said senior author , an assistant professor in the 91̽��School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “Grouping is very common in marine fish and we think this is largely to help them evade predators, yet there’s actually not much empirical support showing this, especially from wild populations. I think this study is a piece of the foundation that many didn’t realize was missing.”

By looking at the number of fish caught in purse seine nets as a proxy for group size, the researchers then estimated predator risk by considering the fraction of fish in each set that had predator wounds. Fish in larger groups were much less likely to be wounded, across species. For example, with sockeye salmon, an increase in 100 fish in a group cut predation risk in half. Also, wound data showed that fish whose bodies were larger or smaller than others in their group were more likely to be attacked by a predator. This suggests that the salmon’s safety in numbers comes from confusing their predators because visually distinct — larger or smaller — individuals were easier for predators to keep track of.

The researchers also found that for two salmon species — sockeye and chum — fish in larger groups had less food in their stomachs. These fish sometimes sacrificed a meal to remain protected in a group and avoid predators. The team didn’t notice this pattern for pink and coho salmon, however. One possible reason for this, the researchers said, is that sockeye and chum salmon spend a much longer portion of their lives in the ocean, and also tend to travel farther away from their home streams than other species. Spending more time and traveling farther out in the ocean generally means food is harder to find, leading to more competition and less food for fish in larger groups.

The authors hope this paper inspires eventual consideration of group size distributions and the benefits and costs of grouping in current fisheries management models — as well as dusting off other data sets to reveal relevant findings.

“Many of these data sets came at great cost and I think there’s a lot in them still ready to be uncovered,” Berdahl said. “I would hope it also motivates people to think about the ecological implications of collective behavior — in this case, how grouping impacts the food web, both by changing the rate a species is being eaten as well as the rate at which it is consuming others.”

Other co-authors are , a 91̽��professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, and , previously a research scientist at the 91̽��School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. This research was funded by the Fisheries Research Institute and the H. Mason Keeler Endowed Professorship at the UW.

For more information, contact Polyakov at polyakov@uw.edu, Quinn at tquinn@uw.edu and Berdahl at berdahl@uw.edu.

It’s hard to forget the excruciating heat that blanketed the Pacific Northwest in late June 2021. Temperatures in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia soared to well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with Seattle of 108 degrees on June 28.

During the heat wave, also called a heat dome, scientists and community members alike noticed a disturbing on some beaches in Washington and British Columbia, both in the Salish Sea and along the outer coast. The observers quickly realized they were living through an unprecedented event and they organized to document the shellfish die-offs as they happened in real time.

Now, a team led by the 91̽�� has compiled and analyzed hundreds of these field observations to produce the first comprehensive report of the impacts of the 2021 heat wave on shellfish. The researchers found that many shellfish were victims of a “perfect storm” of factors that contributed to widespread death: The lowest low tides of the year occurred during the year’s hottest days — and at the warmest times of day. The were published online June 20 in the journal Ecology.

“You really couldn’t have come up with a worse scenario for intertidal organisms,” said lead author , a research scientist at 91̽��Friday Harbor Laboratories. “This analysis has given us a really good general picture of how shellfish were impacted by the heat wave, but we know this isn’t even the full story.”

The research team leveraged existing collaborations across tribes, state and federal agencies, academia and nonprofits. They devised a simple survey and five-point rating system (1 = much worse than normal to 5 = much better than normal) and asked participants to provide ratings based on their knowledge of a species in that location. In total, they gathered 203 observations from 108 unique locations, from central British Columbia down to Willapa Bay, Washington.

“The strength of this study and what it really highlights is the value of local knowledge and also the importance of understanding natural history,” said co-author , a 91̽��associate teaching professor in environmental studies and aquatic and fishery sciences. “This is the first step and a snapshot, if you will, of what shellfish experienced on the beaches during the heat wave.”

The researchers found that each species’ ecology contributed to its general success or failure to survive the extreme heat. For example, some shellfish that naturally burrow deep beneath the surface, like butter clams, usually fared better than ones that typically ride out low tide just below the sand’s surface, such as cockles.

They also found that location mattered. Shellfish on the outer coast experienced low tide about four hours earlier than shellfish on inland beaches. For inland shellfish, low tide — or when the most shellfish were exposed — hit around solar noon, when the sun was directly overhead.

Additionally, air temperatures were much higher at inland sites compared to the outer coast, causing more stress on inland populations. For example, California mussels, found almost exclusively on the outer coast, mostly survived the heat while bay mussels, found in more inner coastal sites, were more likely to die from heat exposure. More water movement and wave action on the outer coast also likely helped lessen the impacts of the heat on shellfish along those beaches.

“The timing of low tide helps determine when and where organisms may be exposed to heat stress and can structure behavior and distribution. In this case, organisms at locations that are already exposed to air at the hottest time of day were very unlucky that temperatures soared so high,” said co-author Hilary Hayford, habitat research director at Puget Sound Restoration Fund.

Many shellfish don’t tend to move much on any given beach, so where they naturally live in the intertidal zone also contributed to their success or failure, the researchers found. For example, acorn barnacles that live higher on the shore generally were more impacted than clams and oysters that are lower on the beach and more likely to remain under water.

“Although this event had negative effects on marine life, there is hope that can be found in this work. Not all locations and species were affected equally, offering clues to pathways to resiliency in the future,” said co-author Annie Raymond, a shellfish biologist with Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the researchers noticed interesting patterns in survival rates among shellfish on the same beach. In some locations, shellfish in the path of freshwater runoff on one section of beach survived, while others just a few miles away perished. If a tree hung over part of a beach and shaded the sand, those shellfish generally made it while others didn’t. Co-author , senior shellfish biologist with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, remembers seeing those patterns while walking the beaches of Skagit Bay and, in some locations, being surrounded by dead cockles in every direction.

“It was pretty unsettling, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Barber said. She remembers exchanging emails with colleagues from around the region as they noticed similar mass die-offs on their local beaches, then realizing that they urgently needed to coordinate and document what was happening.

“This effort was a beautiful demonstration of how collaborators can come together with one common cause — which in our case was trying to understand what happened to these shellfish,” Barber said.

Because the heat wave occurred during the time frame when many shellfish are reproducing, the mass die-offs could impact those populations for at least several years, highlighting the need for long-term monitoring, the researchers said. And as climate change continues to produce more frequent extreme heat events, shellfish deaths like those of last summer may become more of a common reality.

“The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community is proud to be a leader in this important scientific research that assessed in real-time the devastating impacts to our shellfish resources from the unprecedented heat dome last summer. Shellfish are a priority first food that our tribal community relies on for spiritual and subsistence nourishment. Last summer’s extreme weather event reinforced to us that we must act faster to ensure climate resiliency for our community’s long-term health and well-being,” said Swinomish Tribal Chairman Steve Edwards.

“Once the effects of the heat wave started to become apparent, the collaboration that emerged was amazing as managers and scientists worked quickly to put together a rapid response to capture information,” said co-author Camille Speck, Puget Sound intertidal bivalve manager for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We still have so much to learn about the effects of the heat wave on Salish Sea marine ecosystems, and more work to do as managers to prepare for the next one and develop informed responses. These conversations are happening now, and it is our hope that we will be better prepared for whatever comes next.”

Other co-authors are Megan Dethier of the UW; Teri King of UW-based Washington Sea Grant; Christopher Harley of University of British Columbia; Blair Paul of Skokomish Indian Tribe; and Elizabeth Tobin of Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. More than two dozen individuals contributed data to this project.

This analysis was funded by Washington Sea Grant with data contributions from tribes, state and federal agencies, academic institutions and nonprofits.

For more information, contact:

• Wendel Raymond, 91̽�� and lead author: wraymond@uw.edu
• Sean McDonald, 91̽��: psean@uw.edu
• Julie Barber, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community: jbarber@swinomish.nsn.us
• Camille Speck, WDFW (contact Ben Anderson, communications manager): Benjamin.Anderson@dfw.wa.gov
• Teri King, Washington Sea Grant: guatemal@uw.edu

A new effort at the 91̽�� aims to accelerate eDNA research by supporting existing projects and building a network of practitioners to advance the nascent field. Called the , the team is based in the College of the Environment with leadership and program staff from the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs.

For about a decade, scientists have honed the craft of using genetic material in the environment — known as eDNA — to detect and monitor organisms for environmental science and conservation. In a marine environment, for example, scientists can collect water samples from a specific location, then extract DNA to discern which species were present recently in that area, having never seen the animals themselves.

This bit of molecular wizardry is now becoming routine for scientists — even prompting a commitment from the U.S. Navy to use eDNA to map the locations of marine mammals — and the eDNA Collaborative aims to help the technique make the leap into everyday use for people and governments everywhere.

It can be hard to monitor and gather data across large areas using standard techniques of observing and counting various species, and eDNA techniques aim to supplement standard approaches to data collection and monitoring. This data can then inform state and federal decisions about wildlife conservation and management. For example, the team helped roll out a molecular method to help Washington find invasive European green crabs as they threaten to invade the waters of Puget Sound. Such practical applications are what turn a technology from being an interesting niche into a foundational tool on which agencies rely.

But adopting new technologies requires building familiarity and trust, and this is where the eDNA Collaborative comes in. The Collaborative’s director, , a 91̽��professor of marine and environmental affairs, likened the young field of eDNA research to how various new technologies develop and take off.

“Experimentation is how technologies develop, and as with the early days of any new tech, it’s a soup of ideas with eDNA research,” Kelly said. “While people are still inventing, we don’t want to impose standards in a top-down way. We want to encourage best practices without squelching creativity. That’s what this Collaborative will help do: accelerate the field from the bottom up.”

The initiative will focus on three main areas: Supporting existing eDNA research projects at UW; granting seed money to new eDNA research ventures outside the 91̽��and the United States; and supporting a visiting scholar program to connect eDNA practitioners and encourage networking and information-sharing. The goal is to move more of the techniques developed in the lab out into practice in the field, helping the best ideas rise to the surface faster.

“Environmental DNA is an entirely new way of seeing the living world, and we’re just learning how to take advantage of it for purposes of management and conservation. At the Collaborative, we wake up every day thinking about how to move this technology into routine practice for people and institutions around the world,” said Eily Andruszkiewicz Allan, chief scientist at the Collaborative.

The Collaborative is funded initially with a $1 million grant from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. The team also recently secured a $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Navy — in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography — for a five-year project to use eDNA to map the locations of marine mammals in the ocean.

The goal is to help the U.S. Navy reduce harm to marine mammals by better understanding where those animals are in space and time. Most of the eDNA sampling activity will begin this fall and center around Seattle and San Diego. eDNA methods will fold into other existing work, including visual and acoustic surveys, to eventually produce a West Coast-wide estimate of where marine mammals are in the ocean.

Other ongoing projects include:

• Monitoring for the invasive European green crab throughout Puget Sound and Washington’s outer coast
• Developing eDNA as a tool for
• Using eDNA to monitor the presence of salmon in streams to gauge the effectiveness of culvert replacement projects in Washington
• Assessing seasonal changes in Norwegian fjords for the country’s salmon industry

For more information, contact Kelly at rpkelly@uw.edu, Allan at eallan@uw.edu and program manager Cara Sucher at csucher@uw.edu or email the Collaborative at ednacollab@uw.edu. Contact U.S. Navy program officer Mike Weise for questions about the marine mammal monitoring grant: michael.j.weise@navy.mil.

Follow the eDNA Collaborative on Twitter at .

, a professor in the 91̽��School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, has been named a 2022 fellow of the Ecological Society of America. Fellows are elected for life, and the honor recognizes scientists who advance or apply ecological knowledge in academics, government, nonprofits and the broader society.

Olden studies the structure and function of freshwater ecosystems in response to environmental change. Olden seeks to integrate science-based approaches with on-the-ground management decisions, and he actively engages in science communication and community science efforts.

, an assistant professor in the 91̽��School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, has been named a 2022 early career fellow, an honor for researchers who are within eight years of completing their doctoral training.

Harvey’s research focuses on understanding forest disturbances — fires and insect outbreaks — and how forests are shaped by these disturbances, along with climate. For the last decade, Harvey has conducted research on the disturbance ecology of forests in the Pacific Northwest, the Rockies and coastal California.

“I’m delighted to see these two exceptional faculty recognized by the ESA,” said Maya Tolstoy, Maggie Walker Dean of the 91̽��College of the Environment. “Julian and Brian each bring innovative approaches to research, teaching and community engagement that are outstanding within their fields, and further the essential work of understanding human impacts on our planet’s ecological processes.”

According to the Ecological Society of America’s April 12 , Olden was elected for “pushing the frontiers of invasion ecology and deepening the understanding of freshwater sustainability through environmental flows management, for tireless science communication and for his dedication to training the next generation of freshwater ecologists and conservation biologists.”

Harvey was elected for “deepening understanding of the effects of natural disturbances, especially fire and insect outbreaks, on resilience and management of forests in the U.S. West; for excellence in science communication and outreach; and for outstanding teaching and mentoring at all levels from undergraduate to advanced graduate.”

4/1/22 update: Traffic congestion on campus is significant during cherry blossoms season and parking is limited. Please take light rail to the University District Station or park in the or .

The 29 cherry trees in the Quad usually reach peak bloom the third week of March, said 91̽��arborist , and this year is on track to meet that timing. Warmer temperatures and mild weather all factor into when the cherry trees start to blossom and when they reach peak bloom.

Virtual viewing options are also available, including 91̽��Video’s live webcam overlooking the Quad, a virtual tour with photos from campus and tweets from . Hear Shores explain how a cherry tree functions in this interactive “anatomy of a cherry tree” illustration:

Once the trees reach peak bloom — when at least 70% of the blossoms have emerged — cooler temperatures, drier weather and lighter winds will keep the blossoms on the trees longer. The university asks that visitors not climb the trees or shake their branches, as this can cause damage.

Dozens of varieties of blossoming cherry and plum trees can be found across the Seattle area, with blooms visible from early February until, for some species, May. Petal colors range from white to light rose to dark pink, and cherry trees — unlike plums — have distinct horizontal-line patterns on their bark called . These help the trees “exhale” or release carbon dioxide and water.

Plum trees, which often are mistaken for cherry trees, bloom earlier than most cherries and don’t have lenticels on their bark.

The Seattle Department of Transportation maintains this of trees across the city. To see cherry trees in your neighborhood, click on “Explore street trees” in the top navigation bar, then click on “trees by type” and look for trees with the “Prunus” genus (cherry and plum trees).

For more information on the 91̽��campus cherry blossoms, contact Michelle Ma at mcma@uw.edu.

European green crabs feast on shellfish, destroy marsh habitats by burrowing in the mud and obliterate valuable seagrass beds. The invasive species also reproduces quickly, making it a nightmare for wildlife managers seeking to control its spread in Washington’s marine waters.

Last month, Gov. Jay Inslee issued an in response to more than as well as dramatic increases in crab populations on Washington’s outer coast and other locations in Puget Sound in recent years.

As the green crab invasion in the state worsens, a new analysis method developed by 91̽�� and Washington Sea Grant scientists could help contain future invasions and prevent new outbreaks using water testing and genetic analysis. The , published online Feb. 6 in the journal Ecological Applications, show that the DNA-based technique works as well in detecting the presence of green crabs as setting traps to catch the live animals, which is a more laborious process. Results suggest these two methods could complement each other as approaches to learn where the species’ range is expanding.

The new method relies on genetic material in the environment, known as eDNA, that is found in the water after organisms move through. Scientists can collect a bottle of water from a location, extract DNA from the water and discern which species were present recently in that area.

“We have limited resources to be able to combat this problem, and it’s important to think about how to allocate those resources efficiently and effectively,” said lead author , who completed the work as a master’s student in the 91̽��School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. “Knowing the best situations for using eDNA to detect invasive green crabs is important, and that’s what our study tried to tackle.”

The research team relied on data collected over three months in 2020 from green crab traps in 20 locations throughout Puget Sound and the outer coast. Trapping at these locations was done by a large number of partners participating in statewide efforts to monitor and control European green crab, including multiple tribes, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife — the state lead for green crab management — Washington Sea Grant’s , and other state and federal agencies.

For this study, the researchers visited each location and collected water samples, then ran genetic analyses to detect both the presence and quantity of European green crab in each location. In this way they could validate the eDNA data with the actual presence and numbers of crabs. They found that using eDNA to detect the presence and abundance of the species was as sensitive as trapping and counting live crabs.

This is significant, the researchers said, because eDNA as a detection method is new, and it hasn’t always been clear how to interpret eDNA detections in past scenarios. This study shows how conventional monitoring methods — in this case, trapping and counting crabs — can be combined with eDNA techniques to more effectively find and control invasive species outbreaks.

“Here’s a really well-validated example of how to use eDNA in the real world. To me that’s really exciting,” said co-author , a 91̽��associate professor in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. “There are lots of invasive species, and many imperiled and endangered species that are hard to monitor, so this is one significant way forward on all of those fronts.”

The study also evaluates when eDNA would add value in monitoring for invasive crabs, and when conventional trapping and counting still make the most sense. For example, taking water samples and testing for green crab DNA in remote locations — or in areas where outbreaks haven’t yet been identified — could save time and resources instead of deploying traps. Alternatively, eDNA probably wouldn’t be helpful in locations where large numbers of green crabs are already living and where community scientists and managers are already trapping and controlling those populations, the researchers explained.

“From a management perspective, the value of this tool just really comes to life in places that are more remote or have a lot of shoreline to cover, like Alaska, where green crabs haven’t yet been detected,” said co-author , a marine ecologist who leads the Washington Sea Grant Crab Team. “I see eDNA as another tool in the toolkit, and we can imagine scenarios where it can be used alongside trapping, especially as an early detection method.”

Finding these crabs soon after they have occupied a new location is important for controlling the population and protecting native habitats. Managers could get ahead of new invasions by testing water from multiple locations, and then follow up with more water testing, on-the-ground monitoring and trapping if green crab DNA is detected.

The paper identified green crab DNA in one location where the species hasn’t yet been captured, near Vashon Island. The research team followed up a year later with intensive trapping and retested the water; no green crabs or additional green crab DNA were found. The researchers think the earlier positive sample likely was picking up green crab larvae, which weren’t present in that location a year later. Notably, the effort represented an important test case for how eDNA and traditional trapping can be implemented together for green crab management.

“The reason we pursued this project in the beginning is that early detection of green crabs is difficult — it’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” said co-author , a 91̽��associate teaching professor in environmental studies and aquatic and fishery sciences and the 91̽��principal investigator for Crab Team research. “So if adding eDNA to our toolkit helps us detect those needles, then that’s great to have at our disposal.”

of the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies is an additional co-author. This research was funded by Washington Sea Grant.

Contact the co-authors for more information. Contact info and expertise listed below:

• Abigail Keller (lead author, eDNA, European green crab): g.keller1@gmail.com
• Ryan Kelly (eDNA): rpkelly@uw.edu
• Emily Grason (European green crab; Crab Team efforts): egrason@uw.edu
• Sean McDonald (European green crab; Crab Team efforts): psean@uw.edu
• Chase Gunnell, WDFW communications (policy and state funding questions related to green crabs): gunnell@dfw.wa.gov or 360-704-0258 (cell)

Grant number: NOAA Award No. NA18OAR4170095

Accidentally trapping sharks, seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles and other animals in fishing gear is one of the biggest barriers to making fisheries more sustainable around the world. — sections of the ocean set aside to conserve biodiversity — are used, in part, to reduce the unintentional catch of such animals, among other conservation goals.

Many nations are of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 from some or all types of exploitation, including fishing. Building off this proposal, a new analysis led by the 91̽�� looks at how effective fishing closures are at reducing accidental catch. Researchers found that permanent marine protected areas are a relatively inefficient way to protect marine biodiversity that is accidentally caught in fisheries. Dynamic ocean management — changing the pattern of closures as accidental catch hotspots shift — is much more effective. The were published online the week of Jan. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We hope this study will add to the growing movement away from permanently closed areas to encourage more dynamic ocean management,” said senior author , a professor at the 91̽��School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “Also, by showing the relative ineffectiveness of static areas, we hope it will make conservation advocates aware that permanent closed areas are much less effective in reducing accidental catch than changes in fishing methods.”

These techniques could include devices that keep sea turtles away from shrimp fishing, or streamer lines on boats to deter seabirds from getting caught in fishing lines.

The international team of researchers looked at 15 fisheries around the world — including Californian swordfish, South African tuna and Alaskan pollock — and modeled what would happen both to the targeted fish and to species caught accidentally, called bycatch, if 30% of fishing grounds were permanently closed, compared with dynamic management. In practice, dynamic management tracks real-time data of bycatch and closes smaller areas that can move year to year based on where species are most affected.

One of the critiques of permanent marine protected areas is that many of the species they are supposed to protect — marine mammals, turtles, seabirds — move around and may leave the protected area altogether. The study found that, on average for all fisheries studied, restricting fishing in 30% of a fixed area did reduce bycatch by about 16%. But in dynamic closed areas, over the same fraction of the ocean, bycatch was reduced by up to 57%.

“We found we can significantly reduce bycatch without decreasing the catch of target species by closing small fishing areas that can move year to year,” said lead author , an independent fisheries consultant based in Uruguay who completed this work as a 91̽��postdoctoral researcher. “This dynamic approach is increasingly valuable as climate change drives species and fisheries into new habitats, altering these interactions.”

The authors acknowledge that goals differ for various marine protected areas, and if the main purpose is to protect a critical habitat, a biodiversity hotspot or unique feature, static closures might be more effective and easier to enforce. In this way, all conservation goals should be broadly considered when determining which types of ocean protections to put in place, they said.

“I hope this study encourages everyone to consider how best to reduce bycatch and protect marine ecosystems,” Hilborn added.

A full list of co-author names and institutions is listed in the . No outside funding was used in this research.

For more information, contact Hilborn at rayh@uw.edu and Pons at mpons@uw.edu.

Almost all of the world’s 31 largest carnivore species, including gray wolves, grizzly bears, cheetahs and lions, have been impacted by human development and activity. Most of these animals have seen their range and populations decline over the past century, and many are listed as threatened by international conservation groups.

As conservationists and scientists consider if and how to bring back these species in significant numbers across their historical ranges, many potential conflicts arise: Will the animals pose a threat to humans or livestock? Who gets to make the decisions? Who benefits the most from these recovery efforts?

A team of researchers led by the 91̽�� is considering these questions through an unconventional lens: justice. The researchers drew upon the field of environmental justice — which primarily has focused on harms to people and public health — and applied its concepts to wildlife management, considering forms of injustice that people, communities and animal groups might experience. Environmental justice, in this context, looks at who is most vulnerable and who could be disproportionally harmed by large carnivore reintroductions.

“We are awakening to the fact that justice matters and is present in a lot of domains, including conservation projects,” said lead author , an assistant professor in the 91̽��School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. “We’re hoping this paper is a really timely intervention that gives those involved in these reintroduction projects a framework to say, ‘We care about justice. We didn’t really know we were overlooking it in past efforts, and now we have something that can help inform us going forward.’”

The team last month in the journal Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. 91̽��News spoke with McInturff to find out more about the team’s goals for this work.

91̽��News: How can environmental justice help with wildlife conservation?

AM: Environmental justice and biodiversity conservation are two of the most important concerns people and nature face in the 21st century, but they’re rarely discussed together. Now, there is an emerging paradigm in conservation that asks, how can humans coexist with free-living animals — even ones that are potentially dangerous like large carnivores — instead of thinking about conservation only as setting aside protected land for species? As we begin this new paradigm in conservation, we propose starting it with questions of justice in mind so that they’re baked in from the beginning.

What unique challenges do large carnivore reintroductions pose that environmental justice can help address?

Large carnivores are a unique set of species for a lot of different reasons. They are involved in just about every kind of human-animal conflict you can imagine, so we thought they were a challenging but important place to start. Some of these challenges: People who make decisions about carnivore reintroductions sometimes don’t live near the places where the recovery efforts — and potential related animal-human conflicts — are occurring. Large carnivores themselves are wide-ranging and highly mobile. One animal’s erratic behavior can impact people’s view of the entire species. So, the challenges and the opportunities go hand in hand, and that makes this difficult, but also important, to tackle.

In the paper, you describe four components of environmental justice that are important to consider in conservation projects. Can you explain those in the context of large carnivore reintroductions? 

• Distribution considers who is actually being harmed materially and who is benefiting
• Participation asks who has a seat at the decision-making table
• Recognition asks whose worldview is being recognized in the terms of the debate or in the discussion itself
• And finally, affective (or emotional) justice considers how we appropriately account for people’s emotions — fear, anger, happiness, for example — toward the reintroduction of certain species

On this last point: On one hand, we should take emotions really seriously — fear can be life-changing and is very important to understand as a harm in and of itself. And at the same time, emotions can be difficult to estimate, and they can reorient power dynamics. In the case of large carnivores, we’ve often seen people who are not vulnerable or marginalized use emotions like fear to make themselves into victims. They wind up having an even bigger voice in the decision-making process than they might have had before.

So how can we use this environmental justice framework going forward in these reintroduction efforts?

Through a justice lens, we can ask questions about who is making decisions, and whether they are people who are in power, or people who are already marginalized. We can try to measure the ways in which material harm has been inflicted on different groups of people, or the ways in which impacts are unequally distributed. Social science, or humanistic, considerations tell us a bit about the bigger picture: What are the worldviews involved, how might those limit or enable discussions that weren’t possible before, and how are people’s emotional experiences shaping these conversations and the possible outcomes?

The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park happened in 1995 and has been hugely divisive ever since. People have spent millions of dollars trying to address the problems that arose. But, in fact, it might be that a different kind of framing — one around justice — could offer an important new step toward addressing these problems.

This isn’t something folks love to hear, but I think the truth is, if you expect a framework like this to give you a single, perfect answer to solve problems, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Large carnivore reintroductions include a complicated and challenging set of circumstances, so having a process in place is really important, especially one that’s informed by a good understanding of justice.

What’s next with this work?

Our goal is to walk through this framework using a possible as a case study to lay out what it would actually look like to do this while thinking about environmental justice from the very beginning.

For more information, contact Alex McInturff at amcintur@uw.edu.

When a massive wildfire tears through a landscape, what happens to the animals?

While many animals have adapted to live with wildfires of the past — which were smaller, more frequent and kept ecosystems in balance across the West — it’s unclear to scientists how animals are coping with today’s unprecedented megafires. More than a century of fire suppression coupled with climate change has produced wildfires that are now bigger and more severe than before.

In a rare stroke of luck, researchers from the 91̽��, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, were able to track a group of black-tailed deer during and after California’s third-largest wildfire, the 2018 . The megafire, which torched more than 450,000 acres in northern California, burned across half of an established study site, making it possible to record the movements and feeding patterns of deer before, during and after the fire. The were published Oct. 28 in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

“We don’t have much information on what animals do while the flames are burning, or in the immediate days that follow after wildfires,” said co-lead author , a postdoctoral researcher at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at UC Santa Barbara. “It was kind of a happy accident that we were able to see what these animals were doing during the wildfire and right after, when it was still just a desolate landscape.”

The researchers were surprised by what they learned. Of the 18 deer studied, all survived. Deer that had to flee the flames returned home, despite some areas of the landscape being completely burned and void of vegetation to eat. Most of the deer returned home within hours of the fire, while trees were still smoldering.

Having access to this location information — from previously placed wildlife cameras and GPS collars — is rare when studying how animals respond to extreme and unpredictable events, like megafires.

“There are very few studies that aim to understand the short-term, immediate responses of animals to wildfires. When a fire sweeps through and dramatically changes the landscape, its impact in those initial days is undervalued and absent in the published literature,” said co-lead author , a doctoral student at the 91̽��School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

The study took place northwest of Sacramento at the University of California’s , where the researchers were studying the movements of black-tailed deer. Before the Mendocino Complex Fire started, the team had placed tracking collars on 18 deer and positioned several dozen motioned-activated wildlife cameras across the area.

On July 27, 2018, the research team based in Hopland saw smoke nearby. Within hours, they were told to leave immediately and not return to the property, as large flames swept through. In total, a little over half of the research center’s land was burned by the Mendocino Complex Fire that was, at the time, California’s largest wildfire.

Kreling, who needed data from the site for her senior-year undergraduate thesis at UC Berkeley, decided to pivot — or, in the words of her collaborators, “turn lemons into lemonade.” The wildlife tracking technology and photos allowed Kreling and co-authors instead to look at how deer change their use of space during and immediately after large disturbances like wildfires, and how this event influenced their body condition and survival.

“Seeing the drastic changes on the landscape got me wondering what it’s like for animals on the land to actually deal with the repercussions of having an event like this sweep through,” Kreling said. “Having the infrastructure in place was very useful to see what happened before, compared to what happened after.”

Despite the challenges of having little to eat, all of the deer returned soon after the fire. Deer from burned areas had to work harder and travel farther to find green vegetation, and researchers noticed a decline in body condition in some of these animals. Still, their loyalty to home is a tactic that likely helped this species survive past wildfires.

It’s unknown whether this loyalty-to-home strategy will prove helpful, or harmful, in the future. Smaller wildfires encourage new vegetation growth — tasty for deer — but massive wildfires can actually destroy seed banks, which reduces the amount of plants available to eat. In this case, some of the deer that had to expand their home range to eat did so at the expense of their body condition.

“These deer have evolved this behavioral strategy that has clearly worked for them, but the big question mark is, as fires get more intense and frequent, will this behavior actually trap animals in these habitats that are seeing massive disturbances on the scale of nothing that has happened before in their evolutionary history,” Gaynor said.

The specific patterns observed with these deer likely can’t be applied to other large mammals in different regions, the authors said. But it’s an interesting case study to explore what extreme disturbances, like large wildfires, might mean for animals. Meanwhile, co-author , a doctoral student at UC Berkeley, is continuing to look at the long-term effects of the fire on the health and reproductive capacity of this population of deer, which is still being tracked.

Other co-authors are and at UC Berkeley. McInturff is now an assistant professor at the UW.

This research was funded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

For more information, contact Kreling at skreling@uw.edu and Gaynor at gaynor@nceas.ucsb.edu.