Thursday, November 6, 2025
Dr. Cindy R. Elliser is the next featured speaker in Annie Crawley’s Environmental Speaker Series at the Edmonds Waterfront Center. She is a marine mammalogist, associate director of the Salish Sea Institute at Western Washington University, and founder and research director of Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam).
The event is Thursday, Oct. 9, with doors opening at 6 p.m., and the presentation beginning at 6:30. The Edmonds Beacon is the media sponsor for the event. Subtitles/closed captioning provided. Assistive listening devices are available for checkout or smartphone sync.
Elliser has spent more than a decade unlocking the mysteries of the harbor porpoise, the second-smallest cetacean in the world, which reaches just 5–5.5 feet in length and weighs approximately 150 pounds. Despite being one of the most abundant marine mammals in the Salish Sea, harbor porpoises are often overlooked due to their shy nature and fleeting surface appearances.
Through groundbreaking long-term research in Burrows Pass, off Fidalgo Island, PacMam has changed that story – showing that these animals and their calves regularly return to the same waters year after year – called “site fidelity” – some for over a decade.
Her team’s photo-identification program has documented individual porpoises with remarkable site fidelity, revealing patterns of habitat use, social interactions, and family ties. Their work has also uncovered surprising behaviors: While typically shy around boats, harbor porpoises will occasionally wake ride, and although usually seen in pairs or trios, they sometimes gather in aggregations of 200 or more.
PacMam has described their acrobatic aerial mating behaviors, studied their salmon-hunting foraging techniques and, through new drone video work, captured underwater scenes of porpoises socializing, feeding, and navigating life beneath the surface.
By combining local fieldwork with global collaborations, Elliser and PacMam are helping to build a richer understanding of harbor porpoises as a species and their vital role in the Salish Sea.
Her talk will bring guests face-to-face with these “porpoise neighbors” through photos, videos, and stories collected over more than 10 years of research.
Elliser is based in Anacortes. She is associate director of the Salish Sea Institute at Western Washington University, where she helps lead interdisciplinary education programs such as the Salish Sea Studies minor – a cross-border, multidisciplinary program that integrates history, culture, communication, and ecology to envision a sustainable and just future for the region.
Before founding Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) in 2014, Elliser spent years in the Bahamas studying Atlantic-spotted dolphins, building expertise in photo-identification and long-term social behavior studies.
This international background enriches her work in the Salish Sea, where she now applies similar approaches to understanding harbor porpoises and harbor seals. Her research combines science, education, and advocacy to connect people with their marine neighbors and inspire the protection of coastal ecosystems.
Award-winning filmmaker, underwater photographer, author, and speaker, Annie Crawley – known as Ocean Annie – connects people to nature through visual storytelling, education, and ocean advocacy.
A member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame and columnist for Scuba Diving Magazine, she leads the Our Ocean and You campaign, inspiring communities to take action for sustainability, ocean health, and environmental stewardship.
Learn more at AnnieCrawley.com.
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