The Salish Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest
by Audrey DeLella Benedict and Joseph K. Gaydos
The Salish Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest reveals the amazing world of this intricate marine ecosystem, using stunning photos accompanied by informative narrative. Audrey DeLella Benedict, a biologist and writer, is founder and director of Cloud Ridge Naturalists, and a member of the board of the SeaDoc Society. She splits her time between Colorado and an off-grid cottage in the San Juan Islands. Joseph K. Gaydos is a licensed veterinarian and has a PhD in wildlife health. He is chief scientist for the SeaDoc Society, a marine science and conservation program focused on the Salish Sea. He lives on a small island in the Salish Sea.
Q: Tell us about your book.
A: The Salish Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest is really a story (told with words and with pictures) about one of the greatest ecosystems on Earth. The Salish Sea, which includes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and the Straight of Georgia, was only “officially” named in 2009, so compared to other ecosystems like the Everglades, or the Amazon, or the Great Bear Rainforest, the Salish Sea is relatively unknown (but no less fantastic). Knowing how amazing the Salish Sea is, Audrey Benedict and I wanted to write a book that would share this jewel with the entire world. With the help of 55 photographers and the amazing team at Cloud Ridge Publishing and Sasquatch Books, we created a beautiful book that contains over 230 of what I call sushi-quality photos (so good you want to just eat them up) and about 20,000 words of narrative that takes the reader on a journey through the history, the geology and the biology of the Salish Sea. People will finish the book really knowing and feeling connected to this place. Of course, once people are connected to a place they also want to protect it, and we’d like everybody to feel protective of the Salish Sea. After all, our lives and our livelihoods depend on it.
Q: What role does eelgrass play in the Salish Sea?
A: Eelgrass creates a really important place in the Salish Sea — I like to think of it as a nursery for all types of fish and invertebrate creatures. Compared to a lot of other estuaries in the world, the Salish Sea is remarkably deep. Over the last 1.8 million years glaciers have carved deep channels that can be from 100 to 600 metres deep. We don’t have a lot of shallow habitat close to the shore, but where we do eelgrass grows in sandy or muddy sea floors.
Each blade of this grass is like a mini food factory supporting a living film of diatoms, bacteria and other microscopic organisms that are the food base for larger invertebrates, which then again feed fish and other creatures higher up the food chain. These underwater sea grass prairies are important foraging areas for fish, marine birds and marine mammals. They also absorb CO2 and serve as carbon sinks for greenhouse gases. They are truly special places!
Q: What is the importance of the tidal mudflats to migratory shorebirds?
A: To the naked eye, tidal mudflats appear to be uninteresting expanses of nothing but mud; mud deserts. But they are actually incredibly rich places, biologically speaking. They are filled with mollusks, small crustaceans and worms. These provide critical nutrition to a wide diversity of migrating shorebirds — small birds that make epic journeys twice a year travelling between the Arctic and places as far south as Central and South America. Mudflats also produce a nutritious biofilm, made up of a thin layer of organic detritus, microbes, meiofauna, and sediment, forms on the surface of intertidal flats. It is highly nutritious and can comprise up to 50 per cent of the diet of some shore birds like the tiny western sandpiper.
Q: Can you tell us about the practice of reef-net fishing and explain how and why it supports a sustainable salmon fishery in the region?
A: Reef-net fishing is an ancient Coast Salish method of fishing that is unique to the Salish Sea. Initially using cedar canoes and platforms and nets made of cedar and now using more modern materials, nets are strung up between boats while observers watch from towers mounted on the boats and alert the net handlers when to retrieve the nets. Having observers watching the stationary nets minimizes bycatch of birds and mammals, reduces the amount of fossil fuels used to catch the fish, and handles the fish with great care, creating a wonderful and delicious product.
Q: How do air-breathing animals hold their breath for such long periods of time?
A: The Salish Sea is home to an enormous number of marine mammals and birds that breathe air, but conduct most aspects of their lives underwater. How does an animal like a harbour seal accomplish astounding feats such as diving to depths of 500 metres to catch fish and squid without breathing? When underwater, diving birds and mammals are no longer taking in oxygen, they slow their heart rate and reduce or even stop the flow of blood to non-essential places like their skin or stomach while preferentially sending oxygenated blood to more important sites like the heart and brain. Small hemoglobin-like molecules called myoglobin provide working muscles with stored oxygen and the animals tolerate very high levels of carbon dioxide, the molecule that creates the urge to breathe. The result — animals that are perfectly adapted to operate underwater for extended periods of time.
Joseph K. Gaydos will be sharing images and stories from the book at the World Oceans Day: A Celebration of the Salish Sea public event at the Vancouver Aquarium on Monday, June 8, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are available at vanaqua.org or georgiastrait.org.
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