Vol. XXVI, No. 7–8
July–August 2006
Alaska Sea Grant and BP have established a jointly funded graduate student internship, in partnership with UA faculty researchers. Intern projects will be selected on the basis of BP priorities and fit with Alaska Sea Grant mission. The 2007 project will involve wetlands revegetation on the Alaska North Slope.
Alaska Sea Grant moved the Fairbanks headquarters to an off-campus location at the Wells Fargo Building, 794 University Ave. Please stop by to visit.
Bethel MAP agent Terry Reeve coordinated a Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta bird inventory in June, the first step in setting up birder outings as part of village ecotourism. Teams went to Chevak, Scammon Bay, St. Mary's, and Quinhagak to inventory birding potential.
Karla Hart, of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, was the coordinator. Partners include the American Birding Association, Wings Inc., Smithsonian Institution, and experienced Alaska resident birders. Funding support is from the federal Economic Development Administration, Alaska Rural Tourism program, and City of Bethel, with some transportation provided by Alaska Airlines. Reeve assisted in planning and logistics.
Coordinators will set up an infrastructure to bring birders to the region from around the world, to watch birds and hire guides, transportation, and lodging in bed and breakfasts.
Alaska Sea Grant funded Brenda Konar's student, Tracie Merrill, to participate in a cruise that complements Konar's work on walrus foraging in the Bering Sea, including impacts of receding ice conditions.
Recently Alaska Sea Grant supported a project to record killer whales attacking fur seals in the Bering Sea. Alan Springer and graduate student Kelly Newman will use recording equipment from Cornell University's School of Ornithology.
Alaska Sea Grant also supported a study on susceptibility of Alaska clams to QPX disease, by Ralph Elston of the Pacific Shellfish Institute, and Peter Becker, technical director for a shellfish growing business in Washington.
Sixteen female and sixteen male red king crabs from Alitak Bay, Kodiak Island, will be used as brood stock in an Alaska Sea Grant crab fishery enhancement project. Phyllis Shoemaker, of SFOS, is caring for the adult crabs at the Seward Marine Center Laboratory. Looking ahead to identifying the origin of the crabs at harvest time, Brian Allee met with Jim and Lisa Seeb of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. They offered their lab and expertise for single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping.
The third edition of Planning Seafood Cold Storage, by Ed Kolbe, Don Kramer, and Joe Junker, was recently published by Alaska Sea Grant. The book focuses on custom-built walk-in freezers, one-million-pounds and smaller. Kolbe and Junker offer engineering expertise, and Kramer contributes information on optimum seafood quality. See seagrant.uaf.edu/bookstore/pubs/MAB-46.html, 78 pages, $10.00.
Sea Lions of the World, edited by A.W. Trites, S.K. Atkinson, D.P. DeMaster, L.W. Fritz, T.S. Gelatt, L.D. Rea, and K.M. Wynne, was published by Alaska Sea Grant. The peer-reviewed book is the proceedings of the 22nd Wakefield Fisheries Symposium. Authors discuss fluctuation of sea lion populations, parasites, contaminants, nutrition, pup survival, foraging, and wintering. See seagrant.uaf.edu/bookstore/pubs/AK-SG-06-01.html, 662 pages, $50.00.
Alaska Sea Grant was well represented at the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, in June. Don Kramer organized the student paper competition for the Aquatic Food Products Division (AFPD), Brian Allee discussed the Sea Grant sustainable seafood initiative at a reception, and Liz Brown presented her paper on Common Mistakes in Seafood HACCP and was elected to the AFPD Executive Committee.
Jiaqi Huang, Sea Grant–funded master's student at FITC, earned second place in the student competition for his paper on pollock skin protein hydrolysate coatings. Subramaniam Sathivel, assistant professor at FITC, is Huang's advisor. Jill Chantarachoti got third place for her paper on ethanol levels in canned pink salmon. Alex Oliveira is Chantarachoti's advisor.
Alaska Sea Grant cohosted a marine science class for UAF's Alaska Summer Research Academy in July, at the Kasitsna Bay Lab. Nine high school students from Alaska and other states completed the class. Ann Knowlton of SFOS was the lead instructor, assisted by Nick Harmon, marine biology graduate student, and Andrea Chin, a high school science teacher from Unalakleet. Alaska Sea Grant provided a rural student scholarship to Katya Wassillie of White Mountain.
Communications designer Dave Partee staffed the Sea Grant booth at the Alaska Oceans Festival in Anchorage, in June, sharing a tent with Carin Bailey of SFOS. Terry Johnson, Julie Carpenter, and Angela Camos helped, selling books, answering questions, and working on educational activities with children.
In June Sunny Rice presented research results on seabird avoidance gear to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in Kodiak. In 2003–2004, Rice and Torie Baker worked with small-boat longliners to try alternatives to required seabird avoidance devices. This work led to the production of modified lightweight streamer lines for 2005 trials. Both projects were funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Ed Melvin, of Washington Sea Grant, in the 1990s developed tactics to reduce seabird bycatch in Pacific Northwest fisheries, including the streamer deterrents. For his work, Melvin received the NOAA Sustainable Fisheries Leadership Award in Science, Research and Technology, for cooperative research with the fishing industry. Melvin's project helped reduce seabird bycatch by at least 80 percent in Alaska fisheries and is inspiring global adoption of seabird avoidance methods.
Alaska Sea Grant's 2006 Alaska Coastal Calendar won an APEX 2006 Award of Excellence, in the design category. Dave Partee designed the calendar.
Deborah Mercy provided video footage for use in a documentary for The History Channel titled "Alaska: Dangerous Territory," which aired in July. Mercy shot the rough weather footage in 2005 on a red king crab catcher/processor in Bristol Bay.