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Salish Sea Institute News
Announcing the third cohort of the Salish Sea Institute Fellowship Program
We are delighted to introduce our newest cohort of Salish Sea Fellows. Nine individuals were chosen through a competitive process by a team of Salish Sea Institute staff working with colleagues and partners with transboundary expertise.
This interdisciplinary group will be working on projects covering a variety of topics that help advance transboundary research in the Salish Sea. We are excited to see this cohort get started!
Read more about the fellows and their projects below.
Recreation, Conservation, and Protection of the Salish Sea
The latest paper in our Emerging Issues series is now available, “Recreation, Conservation and Protection of the Salish Sea” written by SSI Associate Director, Dr. Cindy Elliser. In recent years, interest in outdoor recreation has greatly increased as more people are enjoying the benefits of being in nature. But less attention is given to the impacts on the environment and the ecological sustainability of recreation at current levels. This paper discusses the effects of increased recreation on the environment and how this impacts Indigenous Rights, as well as the work being done to provide spaces that conserve and protect wildlife, honors Indigenous Rights, and provides recreation spaces for all to enjoy.
Meet Blue Moon and Eddy Fitz
WWU students got to name a pair of the Salish Sea's Humpback Whales
Students connect with local conservation efforts showcasing humpback whale recovery in the Salish Sea
During the 2025 fall session of SALI490, the Salish Sea Studies Community Seminar, taught by WWU Salish Sea Institute Director Ginny Broadhurst and Associate Director Cindy Elliser, the class of Western students was given the delightful opportunity to name two whales that had been newly identified by the Humpback Whales of the Salish Sea (HWSS) project. Tasli Shaw, a marine naturalist and artist, is the co-founder and project lead for the database. Shaw presented the students with the naming opportunity after she was invited to speak to the class about the return of humpback whales to the waters of the Salish Sea.
Opinion: A story Still being written for Southern Resident killer whales
We're proud to share an Op Ed published in the Vancouver Sun on Feb 24th, written by Directory Ginny Broadhurst; Beatrice Frank, Georgia Strait Alliance; and Chloe Robinson, Ocean Wise (recent Salish Sea Fellow).
The Salish Sea Fellowship Program
As we near the creation of the third cohort of Salish Sea Institute Fellows, we took the time to look back at our previous Fellowships. Ava Nicholas, our Tahlequah endowed journalism intern, spoke with two of our previous Fellows, Kelly Bushnell, and Chloe Robinson. She asked them questions about their experience in the Fellowship and how it assisted them in accomplishing projects that otherwise may not have happened.
We're selling gorgeous cotton Salish Sea T-shirts for $20.
Design by Ashley Anshus.
Generous Gift to Create Endowed Professorship
Jerry Masters, business leader, conservationist, and lifetime resident of the Salish Sea has given a generous $500,000 gift to establish the Endowed Salish Sea Studies Professorship. Once the gift is matched to a total of $1,000,000, the endowment will establish a Salish Sea Studies Professorship. According to Director Ginny Broadhurst the endowed position will center Coast Salish Knowledge in the institute's work, and deepen partnerships with Coast Salish communities. "We're excited at the possibility of bringing a scholar with Coast Salish expertise into the institute in a leadership role to help guide curriculum, mentor students, and help shape our work."
The Salish Sea
The Salish Sea bioregion is an estuarine inland sea surrounded by snow-capped mountain ranges and rich in biodiversity. Freshwater lakes and glaciers filter through temperate rainforest into rivers that meet the saltwater and tides from the Pacific Ocean, filling the Puget Sound, Georgia Basin, and Strait of Juan de Fuca. The name "Salish Sea" reflects the long history of Straits and Coast Salish peoples, who have developed deep and abiding relationships with the lands and waters of this region since time immemorial.
Over the past two centuries, the Canada-United States border and each nation's governance structures have cut across this waterscape and intersected with Indigenous nations' laws and governance systems in myriad ways. Millions of people from around the world have moved to the region's cities and rural areas. Settler colonial systems and industrial-scale population growth in the region, combined with extractive resource economies and global climate change, create challenges for the future of this region and all who live here.
The Institute
The Salish Sea Institute at Western Washington University is dedicated to the study and conservation of the Salish Sea ecosystem. We collaborate with regional universities, government agencies, Indigenous communities, and non-profit organizations to conduct scientific research, develop sustainable management strategies, and educate the public about the environmental, social, and economic importance of the Salish Sea.
Bridging borders: Toward alignment of environmental regulations in the Salish Sea for whale conservation
Chloe Robinson from Ocean Wise just had their paper about aligning Salish Sea whale protection policies published in the journal Marine Policy.
Chloe wrote the paper for their Fellowship with the Salish Sea Institute. Way to go Chloe!!
You can also read about this work in our Emerging Issues paper #10
Emerging Issues in the Salish Sea: Issue 11
For around thirty million years, basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) have filter-fed on plankton across Earth’s ocean. They once gathered in aggregations of hundreds (some estimate thousands) on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and individuals were common throughout the Salish Sea until an eradication program sponsored by the Canadian government in the 1950s-60s drove the species to near extinction. This paper provides an overview of the historical population data and changing cultural attitudes toward basking sharks in the Salish Sea and greater Northeast Pacific, and lays out the possibilities for conservation and recovery.
