Beth earned a BS in Biology with Honors from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA in 1995, and a MS in Marine Science from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in 2005. For her Master's thesis research, she investigated biases associated with scat analysis in the Pacific harbor seal. She conducted captive feeding experiments at California Department of Fish and Game’s Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center in Santa Cruz throughout 2003 with seals held at the facility. Much of her work focused on improving estimates of salmon consumption by pinnipeds, because salmon are threatened and/or endangered in many parts of the West coast of the US. Salmonid otoliths (ear bones) are so small that they are rarely found in scat samples, thus estimates of pinniped impacts on these important fish are hard to make. She also worked on improving consumption models for the entire harbor seal population, which fisheries managers can now incorporate into their estimates.

Beth’s current role is with the Central California Marine Bird Health Study (CCMBHS). Marine birds are important indicators of marine ecosystem health, and this study provides a quantitative demographic assessment of disease and other mortality factors affecting Common Murres and other seabird populations in California. She works with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary's BeachCOMBERS program, in cooperation with local rehab facilities to collect and necropsy local seabirds. CCMBHS is based out of California Department of Fish and Game - Marine Wildlife and Veterinary Care and Research Center in Santa Cruz and provides a regional information center for federal, state, and local resource managers.

See the project’s photo gallery:
http://shutterbug.ucsc.edu/gallery/albums.php

Beth has worked as a wildlife biologist on a variety of projects in places such as the Channel Islands, Baja California Sur, Australia, and aboard research vessels in the North Atlantic/Gulf Stream, offshore California, and the Northern Marianas Islands, Micronesia.

Research interests: Seabird population and demographic characteristics, population modeling, seabird and marine mammal diet, human impacts to seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles including oil and plastic pollution, fishery by-catch, and habitat destruction, and marine conservation.

 

Captive feeding study of Pacific harbor seal (Phoca vitulina richardii) improves species-specific consumption estimates

Phillips, Elizabeth M.

Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, 8272 Moss Landing Road, Moss Landing, CA 95039, USA