Shannon Point Marine Center

What’s green, thin, slimy and sways in the water?

It’s eelgrass, an often unseen marine plant that is important for the environment and economy in the Puget Sound region.

The eelgrass in Puget Sound is sort of like a canary in a coal mine for the underwater world, serving as an…

The North Olympic Peninsula's remaining sea stars may be holding their own, but there is no evidence yet of a remarkable recovery of young sea stars seen elsewhere along the Pacific coast, researchers say.

With nearly all of the mature sea stars dead and gone, rarely seen juvenile…

Emerging from a recent dive 40 feet below the surface of the Puget Sound, biologist Ben Miner wasn't surprised by what he found: The troubling disease that wiped out millions of starfish up and down the West Coast had spread to this site along the rocky cliffs of Lopez Island.

In scattered sites along the Pacific Coast, researchers and others have reported seeing hundreds of juvenile sea stars, buoying hopes for a potential comeback from sea star wasting disease that has caused millions of purple, red and orange sea stars to curl up, grow lesions, lose limbs and…

It’s a drizzly, February day, but the spirits of the elementary school students at Western Washington University’s Shannon Point Marine Center are bright as they scour the beach for signs of marine life.
Some of them find limpets and barnacles, others find crawly creatures with claws that…