Puget Sound Institute senior writer Christopher Dunagan discusses the challenges of protecting Puget Sound and all things water-related. As the very first environmental reporter for the Kitsap Sun, he has been a respected voice in the region for more than 25 years. He has been covering science-related stories for the Puget Sound Institute since 2015.
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June 12, 2025
" alt="Low oxygen challenge, part 1: The debate over oxygen in Puget Sound"> In Puget Sound, low oxygen levels are a proven threat to marine creatures, from fish to shellfish and even tiny organisms. This threat has long been recognized by scientists — particularly within slow-flushing bays and inlets where low levels of dissolved oxygen can impair sea life and occasionally create deadly conditions in late summer and […]
April 29, 2025
" alt="New law requires sewage spills to be revealed to the public through a new statewide website"> Mindy Roberts of Washington Conservation Action said someone asked her a few years ago about the frequent sewage spills occurring in Tacoma’s Thea Foss Waterway. “My answer was, ‘What sewage spills?’” Mindy recalled, quickly realizing that if she didn’t know about sewage spills in her own city, then hardly anybody else was likely to know […]
April 17, 2025
" alt="Eating fish: Court order may end the battle over toxic standards in Washington state waters"> It appears that a decade-long battle to establish allowable levels of toxic chemicals in Washington state’s waterways may finally be over. Strict toxic standards, first imposed on the state in 2016 by the Environmental Protection Agency, seem to have prevailed. Primary chemicals of concern in the long battle over human health criteria include polychlorinated biphenyls, […]
April 7, 2025
" alt="Research and whale watching enhanced with artificial intelligence to identify individual orcas"> When out on Puget Sound with killer whale experts, I’m often impressed by how quickly such folks can identify individual whales by name or number, even when a group of orcas is swimming a fair distance away. I can’t begin to do that, because I have never studied the catalogs of dorsal fins and markings […]
December 16, 2024
" alt="Protecting the health of people who eat fish: The long battle over water quality standards"> Culminating more than a decade of fierce debate, Washington state officials formally adopted new water-quality standards for toxic chemicals to protect the health of people who eat fish from our local waterways. On its face, this action appears inconsequential, considering that these numerical criteria were already in place, having been imposed two years ago by […]
November 18, 2024
" alt="Mysterious sharks gain recognition as scientists explore their contributions to Puget Sound"> This past summer, two science papers documented, for the first time, the presence of two species of sharks not known to exist in Puget Sound. These species are commonly called sevengill and soupfin sharks. I am sorry to say that I did not know much about sharks in Puget Sound, and I had never written […]
November 7, 2024
" alt="Some orcas extend their stay in Puget Sound; others visit capture site for first time in years"> Southern Resident killer whales have been hanging out in Puget Sound much longer than normal this fall, probably because of an unusually large run of chum salmon coming into Central and South Puget Sound, experts say. As of today, J pod has remained in Puget Sound for 19 straight days with the exception of a […]
October 4, 2024
" alt="Orca census shows declining population; researchers discuss risk of extinction"> UPDATE, Oct. 11, 2024 Although the newest calf in L pod has not yet been declared missing or deceased by the Center for Whale Research, it is hard to imagine a good outcome from the description by CWR’s field biologist Mark Malleson, who observed K and L pods on Oct. 5 at Swiftsure Bank near […]
July 5, 2024
" alt="Southern resident orca numbers decline during census year; Bigg’s orcas continue to expand"> Although the official census report won’t be submitted for a couple months, at least two southern resident killer whales have died over the past year, with one of them being a little more than a month old. This unnamed, deceased baby, designated J60, was the only new birth reported among the endangered orca population in […]
June 28, 2024
" alt="All killer whales will remain one species — for now, according to marine mammal committee"> A formal proposal to designate resident and Bigg’s killer whales as separate species has been rejected by a committee widely recognized as the authority in naming new marine mammal species. The proposal for new orca species, put forth by a team of geneticists and marine mammal biologists, was based on the distinct genetic, physical and […]
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