Seabirds Suffer in Warm Weather

This article reports on the mass starvation of seabirds on the coast of Washington during summer 2005, a phenomenon first reported by the Seattle Times last summer. Unusually warm oceanic waters apparently disrupted the marine food web. This phenomenon was noted thanks to the efforts of Julia K. Parrish, a professor at the University of Washington, and some 300 citizen-science volunteers. Dr. Parrish established COASST (the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team) in 2000 for the express purpose of documenting trends in the number of dead seabirds washing onto West Coast beaches.