EDMONDS — Cali Weber walked along the gravely beach at Picnic Point, a tape measure trailing behind her. When the coil reached the end, Weber couched down, scooping sand into two plastic bags.
While she was yards away from Puget Sound’s waters, and to the naked eye she seemed to just be gathering the mixture of pebbles beneath her feet, she was actually looking for fish eggs.
Weber is a marine ecology intern for Snohomish County’s Surface Water Management Department, and on Tuesday morning, she and her supervisor, Joycelyn Blue, a planner for the department, conducted their monthly data collection for forage fish eggs.
Forage fish, also commonly known as bait fish, are small schooling fish like herring, sardines, sand lance and smelt. Because the group lays in the middle of marine food webs, eaten by larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals and eating plankton, forage fish are often used as indicators of ecosystem health.
Joycelyn Blue, a planner for Surface Water Management, talks about the areas of the beach they measure in 100-foot sections when taking samples for forage fish eggs on Sept. 23, 2025 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
During high tides, the fish will lay eggs in the sand, which is then exposed during low tides. As Blue and Weber fill the collection bags, it’s impossible to immediately tell if there are eggs present.
“Obviously, sand grain size is very dependent. You can’t just be like, it’s a grain sand, they’re very different,” Blue said. “But just for the colloquial version, one grain of sand can have more than one egg attached to it.”
The sand will be sent to a county lab and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife lab to determine if fish eggs are present. While the state will just record if eggs are found or not, county scientists will go an extra step and collect additional data about the sand grain size, creating more context for researchers and restoration planners to understand what type and size of material forage fish like to lay their eggs in.
A top layer of sand is put in a sample bag on Sept. 23, 2025 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
The state collects data of herring, sand lance and smelt spawning sites throughout Puget Sound and some areas of the coast, with Snohomish County contributing with their monthly samples from Picnic Point, Meadowdale and Howarth Park.
Since 2011, the Marine Resources Committee, a citizen advisory group that’s a part of county’s Surface Water Management department, has helped collect over 700 samples. While Weber and Blue were the only ones out collecting on Tuesday, Blue said committee volunteers usually join for the egg surveys.
During the first few months of her internship, Weber has worked on a variety of the committee’s projects, including working to create marine versions of the county’s stream health report cards.
“It’s been a really fun summer,” she said as she finished up bagging sand on Picnic Point, preparing to head over to Meadowdale to collect there.
Jocelyn Blue inputs data into an online form at Picnic Point Park on Sept. 23, 2025 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Because the county’s lab collects the additional data on sediment size, staff have been able to evaluate the effectiveness of restoration projects in spawning areas, like the Howarth Park and Nearshore restoration project.
“Having the data, ‘Oh, the fish lay here, here’s the breakdown of grain size,’ let them know, here’s a mix that we need to layer on,” Blue said.
To learn more about the Marine Resource Committee and volunteer opportunities, visit https://www.snocomrc.org/about-us/.
Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson.
Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.
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