COASST (Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team) is a

citizen science Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes re ...

project of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, WA, USA, with a goal of monitoring marine ecosystem health with the support of citizens within coastal communities. With the help of hundreds of volunteers, COASST assesses beach conditions and identifies and tracks any carcasses of dead seabirds found. Data on the carcass of a

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

contributes to creation of a baseline record for the death rates of various species of seabirds including which

beaches A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shells ...

birds are found at, and in what density. Any irregularities can be identified and evaluated so the cause of any increased mortality can be identified. COASST works with state, tribal and federal agencies,

environmental organizations An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environment ...

and community groups to help their goals of monitoring, and successfully establishing

marine conservation Marine conservation, also known as ocean conservation, is the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas through planned management in order to prevent the over-exploitation of these marine resources. Marine conservation is in ...

solutions.

History

COASST was founded in 1998 by

Julia Parrish Julia Parrish is an ecologist and conservation biologist at the University of Washington known for her research on seabirds and for her leadership in citizen science. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of S ...

with the goal of expanding long-term data collection on seabirds, including baseline data for discovering patterns of seabird mortality, natural or human-induced, through the program. Due to the increasing human use of coastal waters, Parish envisioned a program that could provide

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...

on both resident and migrant species of birds; mortality rates after oil spills; levels of chronic oiling, information regarding incidents of entanglement with

fishing gear Fishing tackle is the equipment used by anglers when fishing. Almost any equipment or gear used in fishing can be called fishing tackle, examples being hooks, lines, baits/ lures, rods, reels, floats, sinkers/ feeders, nets, stringers/ ke ...

; and causes of death for seabird populations. Since a live bird monitoring program would be difficult, Parish opted to monitor carcasses from beached birds, which could be tracked and identified by anyone. In July 1998, Parrish obtained a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to fund her vision of creating a seabird monitoring program that would generate baseline data to help assess patterns of seabird mortality due to natural and human-induced events. The first director of the program Todd Hass, co-developed COASST with Parrish. Ten years later, COASST has expanded from monitoring five beaches along the outer coast of

Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

, to almost 300 beaches spread across northern California,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, Washington, and

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. As of 2018, COASST has more than 1000 participants, which makes COASST the largest beached bird monitoring network in the world today.

Project recognition

The observations of COASST volunteers on jellyfish have been published in both the scientific literature and the popular press. Stories about COASST observations have presented the stories of citizen scientists,

common murre The common murre or common guillemot (''Uria aalge'') is a large auk. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming to land to ...

die-offs, Cassin's auklets, and

puffins Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...

In 2013, the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

honored Parrish for her work in establishing and leading the COASST program.

References

{{reflist, 30em University of Washington Citizen science