Dead Bird Patrol: Along Pacific Coast, Volunteers Aid UW Research

OCEAN SHORES, WA - For about 20 years, a group of volunteer citizen scientists have been collecting and cataloging dead birds along the Pacific Coast. The volunteers are collecting data for University of Washington scientists who are studying changes in bird mortality.

The Associated Press documented the work of the "Dead Bird Patrol" - also known as the coastal observation and seabird survey team (COASST) - recently in Ocean Shores:

Caption: In this photo taken Sept. 28, 2017, Susan Kloeppel, left, picks up the remains of what she tentatively identified as a sooty shearwater as Jeanne Finke looks on as part of a citizen patrol surveying dead birds that wash ashore on beaches along the U.S. West Coast, in Ocean Shores, Wash. Information gathered is entered into a massive database kept by the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, or COASST. The long-running citizen monitoring program at the University of Washington tracks dead seabirds as an indicator of the coastal environment's health.

Image via Elaine Thompson/Associated Press