SeaDoc Society will celebrate quarter-century milestone, accomplishments at annual Wine and Sea Auction.
Eba stands at the bow of research vessel Cheena, cruising the waters of the Canadian Gulf Islands where killer whales were recently sighted. Wearing an orange life vest, she snuffles the air, her dark eyes trained on the horizon. But she’s not hoping to spot the whales — she’s sniffing out their poop.
Eba is a scent-detection dog for SeaDoc Society, a nonprofit based on Orcas Island with the mission of ensuring the health of the Salish Sea through science and education.
SeaDoc Society turns 25 this year, and they’re inviting community members to celebrate at their annual fundraising event. This year’s Wine and Sea Auction will be on Orcas Island this Saturday, July 12, from 4–7 p.m. Among the many activities and items for auction, attendees will have a chance to smooch SeaDoc’s meritorious mutt at the Eba kissing booth.
A rescue-turned-research-assistant, Eba can detect floating killer whale poop from up to a mile away, allowing researchers to find samples without disturbing the animals. With the poop, also called “scat,” killer whale scientist Deborah Giles can test stress and nutrition levels, pregnancy hormones and more, to study the health of Southern Resident killer whales, a cherished but declining population.
Giles has held a lifelong love of orcas — despite growing up on a worm farm far from the Salish Sea. She has dedicated her life to studying the Southern Residents and has emerged as a leading expert on the whales. As research director for Wild Orca, a nonprofit focused on saving Southern Residents from extinction, she helped advance scientists’ and policy-makers’ understanding of this beloved species suffering a heartbreaking decline.
A monumental merger
In February, Wild Orca and SeaDoc Society joined forces to make an even greater impact on killer whale conservation.
Eba and Giles’ scat detection work is part of Wild Orca’s Southern Resident killer whale health monitoring program, an effort that will continue under the SeaDoc umbrella. Data from the program collected between 2008 and 2014 showed that Southern Residents have a higher-than-average rate of pregnancy loss and suggested that lack of salmon was the most important factor contributing to the losses.
“That’s really valuable information from a management perspective,” Giles said, because salmon recovery is something policymakers can directly target to help bring back these whales.
Leigh Ann Gilmer, regional director at the SeaDoc Society who helped facilitate the merger, said the partnership will take Giles’ work with Wild Orca, including her deep connections with other scientists and organizations, and integrate it with what SeaDoc does best — conducting and funding science and using that science to influence policy.
One such SeaDoc project involves using drones to noninvasively monitor the health of Southern Residents. Currently, the drones collect breath samples from the whales, but soon SeaDoc science director Joe Gaydos hopes the drones can be used in tandem with Giles’ scat research to collect poop samples that sink below the surface before Eba can catch a whiff.
SeaDoc Society funds other research projects through their competitive grants program, which includes a program aimed at funding projects led by scientists from tribes and first nations. SeaDoc also showcases science in “Salish Sea Wild,” a documentary series that captures research in action with short, witty, and engaging videos, two of which recently received Emmy nominations.
Accomplishments — and challenges
Gilmer said the Wine and Sea Auction is “a great way to learn about what SeaDoc does … some of the accomplishments and the challenges we’re still facing and how you can get involved, while still having a lot of fun.”
The annual event is SeaDoc Society’s largest fundraising event of the year, and it’s vital for the organization’s ongoing success. All money raised, including the $150 ticket price, helps support SeaDoc’s conservation work and overall mission.
The event will feature wines and hors d’oeuvres from local vendors and an auction with items and experiences up for bid, such as a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon and a day on the water with Giles and Eba.
Speaking at the event will be environmental journalist for The Seattle Times and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lynda Mapes. Her talk will focus on the importance of not just doing science, but also communicating science, to inform policy and inspire community action.
The long game
“When we work on conservation issues, it really is the long game,” Gaydos said, “because it takes time to fund science, to conduct the science, to publish papers and then to bring all of that stuff together to affect change.”
Almost half of research conducted or funded by SeaDoc over the last 20 years has led to direct impact on policy, resource management and restoration efforts for the Salish Sea.
“You can’t do that in year one,” Gaydos said, emphasizing the collaborative spirit among SeaDoc’s many partners and supporters that has contributed to their success.
To put in perspective what’s possible in SeaDoc’s next 25 years, Gaydos reflected on how far conservation and science has come over the last 25 years: When SeaDoc started, the Southern Residents weren’t listed as an endangered species. The ecosystem we now call Salish Sea didn’t even have a name. Scientists communicated research through photocopied journal articles sent via snail mail.
“I think over the next 25 years, we’re going to see a paradigm shift in the way science is made available for the public and policymakers,” Gaydos said, citing the rise in open-access articles and technology that allows research data to be shared and visualized online, in real time.
For Giles, the next era of killer whale research is poised with possibility because of the newfound partnership between Wild Orca and SeaDoc Society.
“We’re going to be able to push the science, asking more questions more quickly, which is what’s really needed,” said Giles. “In the course of one whale’s lifetime, we humans have essentially decimated their way of life. Everything that’s causing their decline has been driven by our actions, and we know what we need to change. We just need to find the will to make it happen.”
— By Rena Kingery
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Orcas display uncanny behavior in historic Penn Cove visit,” Nov. 20, 2024
• “Science denialism and the bright extinction of killer whales,” May 23, 2024
• “Senate bill changing vessel-orca distance moves forward,” April 14, 2023
• “How much of orca decline is in their DNA?” Dec. 9, 2022
• “Author of ‘Orca’ has a message for the Northwest: hope has a price tag,” Sept. 14, 2021