Joe gaydos seadoc biography

As a world-traveling wildlife veterinarian, surgeon and research scientist, Joe has studied and cared for animals ranging from bush babies to killer whales.
Joe Gaydos is a marine wildlife veterinarian at the SeaDoc Society based in the Salish Sea. Joe has been scuba diving with stellar sea lions, orca whales.
“Nobody likes to think we're directly harming animals,” said SeaDoc Society Director Joe Gaydos, a wildlife veterinarian with the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife.

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Protecting the Salish Sea

Dr. Joe Gaydos has served as the SeaDoc Society’s science director since its inception 20 years ago, when conservationists Kathy and Ron McDowell brought their idea for the science-based program to a team of wildlife researchers at the school. Friel is the filmmaker behind the SeaDoc Society’s adventure series, Salish Sea Wild.

As a program of the school's Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, SeaDoc works to ensure the health of marine wildlife and their ecosystems through science and education. Thanks to donors, the society conducts and funds research aimed at creating science-based solutions for marine wildlife in the Salish Sea — an inland ecosystem that’s home to the Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia, as well as the cities of Seattle and Vancouver. That’s a population over 8 million and counting.

Gaydos and Friel roll oﬀ the ferry and drive north to Bellingham Bay, where researchers with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and the Tulalip tribe await them. Bedtime comes quickly, as they will be greeted by their alarms at 3:3

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Joe Gaydos

A respected and well-known scientist, Joe Gaydos is the Science Director for the SeaDoc Society, a marine conservation program of the UC Davis Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center.

Joe is a bestselling author, a popular and entertaining public speaker, and a sought-after expert voice on wildlife health issues who has advised policymakers from Washington State to Washington D.C.

As a world-traveling wildlife veterinarian, surgeon and research scientist, Joe has studied and cared for animals ranging from bush babies to killer whales. He’s been charged by a silverback gorilla, clawed by a cheetah, and bitten by, well, practically everything. He’s published more than 50 peer-reviewed science papers and co-written the Nautilus Gold Award-winning The Salish Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest and Explore the Salish Sea. And, he hosts the YouTube series Salish Sea Wild, produced by his friend Bob Friel who actually knows what he is doing and is the main reason the show has been so successful.

For the last two decades, Joe has been working on wildlife and ecosystem cons

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Dr. Joseph K Gaydos, VMD, PhD

Chief Scientist, University of California,
Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

Dr. Gaydos is the chief scientist for the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, Wildlife Health Center’s SeaDoc Society Program in Washington State. He has been working on wildlife and ecosystem health issues in the Pacific Northwest for more than a decade. Dr. Gaydos has published dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers on diseases that impact human and wild animal health in species like harbor seals, river otters, porpoises and killer whales. One of the most important functions that Dr. Gaydos performs is his role as a translational scientist to connect science to decisions being made by local citizens and policy makers regarding the natural resources of the Salish Sea. He has been called to make presentations to the State Senate, the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission and other decision-making bodies and was appointed by the Washington Academy of Sciences to serve on the Governor’