Interview with Richard Strickland

Richard Strickland taught Oceanography for years here at the UW. He won the Distinguished Achievement in Lifetime Learning Award in 2002. He's agreed to give us this exclusive interview.

What made you decide to chose a career in Oceanography?

I originally wanted to be an astronaut, or at least design planes &
rockets. I was in college studying aerospace engineering in 1970. I took
an oceanography class and found it much more interesting, and all my
credits transferred, so I switched majors, even becoming a biologist. It
was the depth of the "Boeing Bust" anyway so I didn't look like there
would be jobs in aerospace. Later I found out how seasick I get :(

How serious is pollution in the Ocean? How does that worsen the effects of
Global Warming?

Pollution of the oceans doesn't really make global warming worse, if
that's what you mean. But it does combine with the effects of warming.
Chemical pollution is a problem but not a serious one in most of the open
ocean (the "garbage patches" in the centers of the N. Pacific & N.
Atlantic are a bad problem for the organisms there). Chemical pollution is
significant in coastal harbors such as Puget Sound, it reduces both the
abundance of seafood species and their safety for consumption by humans.
It is being managed but is not yet fully controlled, much less cleaned up.

Warming appears to be causing some species to decline (cod, a cold-water
fish, has disappeared from Puget Sound, for example) and will almost
certainly cause many more such declines in coming decades. Its related
problem, acidification, may be even more serious. Warming, acidification,
and local degradation may wipe out most coral reefs worldwide during the
first half of this century.

What should be done to reduce overfishing?

The state and federal governments have set an example in the recent
management of Alaskan fisheries. It takes careful unbiased research,
strong enforcement, and honest participation and support from the
industry. Two recent trends, setting aside no-harvest refuge areas and
assigning individual rather than fleet-wide fishing quotas, are sensible
approaches to improve the rationality of fishery management. I'm afraid
there is no alternative to police tactics when it comes to renegade
fishing.

How do you feel about about Native American rights to whaling?

I am not a hunter and I wish they didn't want to hunt whales in the modern
world (clearly the hunt was important in original native cultures). The
modern hunt in Washington (unlike northern Alaska) has been for ceremonial
purposes rather than subsistence. However, the West Coast gray whale
population, which is the target species in Washington, as a whole is not
endangered any more (it became endangered because of industrial, not
native whaling). I'm not sure whether we immigrants have a moral right to
govern the native hunt, even though we have the political & legal power. I
am a supporter of tribal rights in general, so I believe as long as the
hunt is conducted consistent with good conservation practices, it should
be legal.

And finally, what is the single biggest threat to ours Oceans today?

Anthropogenic carbon dioxide causing warming & acidification

I hope you enjoyed that and thanks again to Richard Strickland for the interview!
-Rachel Wright