Mary Sue Brancato at Hobuck Beach by Steve Ringman/Seattle Times
Sea Bird "Wreck" Mary Sue Broncatto, NOAA Tuesday, March 8, 7 pm Olympic National Park Visitors Center
During the fall of 2009, dead seabirds began washing up on the beaches of the Washington and Oregon coasts. This set in motion a large effort to understand the causes behind the die-off or “wreck”. Join Mary Sue Broncatto, as she reveals the cause of this event and its possible future implications.
The culprit was a mushroom-shaped single-celled species, Akashiwo sanguinea, that has bloomed in Puget Sound, Chesapeake Bay and saltwater from Europe to Australia and Japan without incident. But something here this time caused the cells to multiply rapidly and break open in a toxic foam. It's been recorded happening only once before — on a smaller scale, in Monterey Bay in California, in 2007.
The phenomenon that killed at least 10,000 seabirds — more than any known event of its kind — has scientists consumed by questions: Was it a rogue occurrence, rarely if ever to be repeated, or a sign of some fundamental marine-world shift?
