Dr. Julia K. Parrish presents “Seabirds, Citizen Science and Saving the World” at the next Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society meeting set for 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 15, at the Dungeness River Nature Center, 1943 W. Hendrickson Road.

In 2009, thousands of Surf Scoters washed ashore along the outer coast of Washington state.

In 2014, tens of thousands of Cassin’s Auklets littered beaches from Haida Gwaii in British Columbia south to Newport, Ore. In 2015, hundreds of thousands of Common Murres were found from California north to the Gulf of Alaska.

And in 2016, thousands of Rhinoceros Auklets died in the Salish Sea. Is this normal?

Join Parrish to learn more about seabird patterns and the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), the largest beached bird monitoring program in the world (see coasst.org).

Parrish, the executive director of COASST, is a professor of ocean fishery sciences and associate dean of the College of the Environment at the University of Washington.

The program is free and open to the public.

For more information about the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society, visit olympicpeninsulaaudubon.org.