In November of 2002 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer completed a six-month investigation into the ecological health of the Puget Sound. They published their findings in a series of articles from November 18-22, outlining the ways in which recent efforts to curtail dumping and pollution had failed to negate decades of human-caused damage to sea life and the marine environment.
In this image, Kurt Stick, a State Fish and Wildlife biologist, examines a piece of kelp for herring eggs near one of two oil refineries off Cherry Point in Whatcom County. The population of spawning herring had dropped from almost 15,000 tons to an estimated 1,330 tons in 2002. Herring are an important food for a number of fish, birds, and marine mammals in the Sound.
Caption by Seattle Post-Intelligencer staff. Photograph published with article: "In busy shipping lanes, threat of big oil spill looms" by Robert McClure, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 21, 2002, pp. 1, 16-17
Additional Information: Metadata created as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
Credit: MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 2000.107.20021101.CD01.013, photo by Paul Joseph Brown
