Vol. 28, No. 4
April 2008
Alaska Sea Grant marine mammal specialist Kate Wynne joined a team of NOAA scientists in Ghana for three weeks, to train 40 Ghanian government officials and university students as fisheries observers. Using a U.S. Navy ship as the training facility, students are learning to be observers on industrial tuna seiners, pole boats, and trawlers, where they will identify and count fish, record marine mammal sightings, and free sea turtles and seabirds from fishing gear.
The NOAA observer training mission is part of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, to enhance international cooperation in fishery management by improving monitoring and compliance with international fishing regulations. Congress recently appropriated $1.5 million per year for the effort. Ghana was the first country to ask for help under the new program, and Senegal and Gabon are soon to follow in developing an observer training program. Currently more than 50 observer programs operate in the world’s oceans.
Wynne is well suited for the pioneer program because she has designed and developed marine mammal observer programs in Maine and Alaska, taught fishery observers in Alaska since 1995, and coauthored Guide to Marine Mammals and Turtles of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, the guidebook used in the Ghana program.
The international program also provides learning opportunities for scientists and fisheries agencies worldwide. Other countries can benefit from following the Ghanian Fisheries Division’s model of efficient bycatch utilization and gear regulation, according to Wynne. In addition, scientists are eager to get observer data on dolphins in West African waters, because no one knows which ones occur there. There may be as many as 15 dolphin species in the region. To help with identification of dolphins and other species, Wynne and marine mammal artist Garth Mix developed an illustrated placard for the observers.
Wynne is also working with the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Ghana, and the Accra Zoo to ensure the marine mammal skulls and samples collected by the observers get into the hands of those who can study and archive them properly.
The North Aleutian Basin Energy-Fisheries Workshop, held March 18–19 in Anchorage, featured speakers on diverse sides of the issue surrounding the possible oil and gas lease sale in the North Aleutian Basin in 2011. The program drew broad attention, informed the public, and elicited suggestions for future directions.
Gregg Nady of Shell Exploration and Production Co., whose company has shown interest in the lease sale, presented development scenarios. John Goll, director of the Alaska Region Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for satisfying the requirements for the lease sale and carrying it out, clarified the permitting process. Commercial fishing agency and industry representatives, community leaders, subsistence users, scientists, and environmentalists presented facts in their area of expertise, and opinions for and against oil and gas development in the region.
At the end of the workshop, participants suggested topics to continue dialog between groups that would be affected by development. These included hard science on effects of development, more details on oil technology and precautions, job opportunities for locals, focus on the permitting process and revenue sharing, and tight shipping regulations. Attendees recommended workshops be held in Sand Point and Dillingham, that potentially affected communities unite and make an offer to the oil industry, and that the Decision Analysis process be used to evaluate whether a lease sale and drilling should take place.
Alaska Sea Grant helped organize and facilitate the Anchorage workshop, attended by 230 people, and also held a two-hour workshop on the same topic during ComFish in Kodiak, which drew 35 people.
Sunny Rice and Torie Baker have invited Sea Grant extension agents from the Pacific region to Petersburg, August 12–14, 2008, to explore opportunities for cooperative projects. In addition, a session on building skills in multiuser issue negotiation will be presented by Laura Taylor Singer of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. The title of the get-together is Sea Grant West Coast Fisheries Extension Educator Conclave: Forging Coastwide and Pacific Connections. For more information see http://seagrant.uaf.edu/map/workshops/2008/feetraining/.
MAP seafood specialist Don Kramer received the 2008 Macy Award from the Institute of Food Technologists, Minnesota Section. As part of his award acceptance Kramer gave a presentation, The Face of Alaska Extension, to members of the IFT Minnesota Section, in Minneapolis–St. Paul, March 17. Established in 1981, the award is given annually to recognize outstanding food technology transfer. Kramer received a plaque and a $2,500 honorarium. The purpose of the award is to advance the profession and practice of food technology and to honor Harold Macy, a founding member of IFT.
Alaska Sea Grant is pleased to have provided some support for SFOS master’s student Carrie Parris, who recently defended her thesis on The Influence of Selected Bottom-up Factors on Intertidal Clam Communities in Kachemak Bay, Alaska. Parris, whose major advisor is Katrin Iken, studied the clams because depletion in local areas has fostered concern. Parris concludes that the two bottom-up factors she looked at, food concentration and sediment size, are not limiting for intertidal clam communities in Kachemak Bay. She found that most clam species in the bay were feeding mainly on benthic microalgae, the distribution of intertidal clams did not have any relationship to benthic chlorophyll a concentrations, and sediment size had little influence on community structure.
Alaska Sea Grant won three awards in the 2008 competition sponsored by the Association for Communication Excellence: a gold award for the 2008 Coastal Calendar, and silver awards for the book Field Guide to Sharks, Skates, and Ratfish of Alaska and the cover design on the 2008 Tide Tables publication.
Alaska Sea Grant has produced a new colorful brochure about Alaska Sea Grant and the Marine Advisory Program. Photos and captions highlight activities of Marine Advisory agents, Alaska Sea Grant outreach and education, Advisory Committee contributions, and research progress, to help constituents understand the high value of the program to Alaska.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has appointed Terry Gardiner, Nancy Rabalais, and Rolland Schmitten to NOAA’s 15-member National Sea Grant Review Panel, which advises the Commerce Secretary, NOAA administrator, and National Sea Grant director on scientific and administrative policy.
Gardiner, a member of Alaska Sea Grant’s 28-member Advisory Committee, founded Silver Lining Seafoods, was speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, chaired the judiciary, resources, and Alaska Permanent Fund committees, and was a member of the U.S. National Seafood Promotional Council. Rabalais is a professor at Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium where she conducts research on coastal interactions and contaminants. Schmitten has served four U.S. presidents as U.S. tuna commissioner and U.S. Atlantic salmon commissioner, and 10 years as head of the U.S. delegation to the International Whaling Commission.