Vol. 28, No. 6
June 2008
Three SFOS graduate students have been named Knauss Fellows, and will spend 2009 in Washington, D.C., working on marine policy issues. Celeste Leroux, Erin Steiner, and Mary Bozza are among 51 students chosen in the national competition. Since 1979 the fellowship has served as a springboard to related careers for hundreds of talented young people.
"We are extremely proud of UAF's ability to compete with highly ranked universities across the country," said Brian Allee, former Alaska Sea Grant director. "Last year, we had one exceptional student chosen for this prestigious fellowship. To have three exemplary students chosen this year is wonderful."
Celeste Leroux is completing research for her master's in marine biology. She is studying the culture of king crab for large-scale hatcheries. Leroux said working with the NOAA Aquaculture Program would be a good fit for her. Erin Steiner's master's research, on alternative harvesting strategies, is aimed at helping Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishermen cope with changing global seafood markets. As a Knauss Fellow, Steiner hopes to work on offshore fisheries issues with NOAA Fisheries. Mary Bozza is a master's student studying immune function in Steller's eiders, hoping to improve understanding of disease impacts on population ecology. Bozza has requested placement in the executive branch.
In December, Alaska's 2009 Knauss Fellows will travel to Washington, D.C., for orientation and placement interviews. They will begin their fellowships in February 2009.
Alaska Sea Grant welcomes Paula Cullenberg as interim director, replacing recently retired Brian Allee. Cullenberg has been the associate director of Alaska Sea Grant for five years, and is leader of the Marine Advisory Program. She served as director of the North Pacific Fisheries Observer Training Center from 1995 to 2002, and has also worked as a project manager for the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, and as a Sea Grant extension agent in Alaska and Washington. "I think Alaska Sea Grant will go forward strongly and with stability while we search for a new director," said Cullenberg. Dave Christie, SFOS professor and director of the NOAA West Coast and Polar Undersea Research Program, also joins Alaska Sea Grant as the interim associate director.
Alaska Sea Grant announces the release of three new publications:
International Smoked Seafood Conference Proceedings, edited by Don Kramer and Liz Brown, based on the 2007 conference, is useful to smoked seafood processors, suppliers, inspectors, and researchers. 125 pages, $30.00.
Rat Control for Alaska Waterfront Facilities, by Terry Johnson, is the basis for a rat control program sponsored by ADFG. Johnson has used the book working with port operators in Juneau, Ketchikan, Unalaska, and Kodiak on rat prevention and eradication. Larry Jones, the pest control contractor for the State of Alaska, complimented Johnson and Alaska Sea Grant on the book, and has already incorporated the content into materials to be used by his trainers. He says the book is easy to read and learn from. 106 pages, single copies free.
Changing Climate: Changing Alaska's Fisheries? edited by Paula Cullenberg and Torie Baker, Alaska Seas & Coasts vol. 5. Readers of this important issue learn about possible effects of climate change on fisheries, such as Bering Sea crabs moving north, an increase in a salmon parasite in the Yukon River, rising temperatures in the Anchor River, and ocean acidification. 12 pages, available for download as PDF.
Alaska Sea Grant also released the second edition of the book Guide to Northeast Pacific Flatfishes, by Donald Kramer, William Barss, Brian Paust, and Barry Bracken; and reprinted the book Common Edible Seaweeds in the Gulf of Alaska, by Dolly Garza.
Alaska Sea Grant's book Field Guide to Sharks, Skates, and Ratfish of Alaska won First Place in the books over 50 pages category of the National Association of Government Communicators Blue Pencil publications competition. In addition, Alaska Sea Grant's 2008 Alaska Coastal Calendar won an Award of Excellence (third place) in the calendar category. The field guide finished ahead of book entries by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and U.S. Geological Survey. The calendar tied with one entered by the U.S. Air Force. Awards were announced at the annual NAGC conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in May.
Clean Boating, by Alan Sorum, Alaska Seas & Coasts vol. 4, won first place in the 2008 Alaska Professional Communicators contest, in the manuals and handbooks category.
MAP agent Reid Brewer organized 12 divers in a two-day cleanup effort of the Small Boat Harbor in Unalaska. Divers removed three flatbed truckloads of debris, including 12 abandoned crab pots, five marine batteries, many coils of line, and a large volume of loose debris. The effort was a collaboration among the Unalaska Divers Association, UniSea, MAC Enterprises, Bering Sea Divers, and others who donated gear, time, and expertise.
As part of Alaska Sea Grant's cosponsorship of the second annual Alaska Book Festival, June 12–14 in Fairbanks, Kurt Byers arranged for famed fish artist Ray Troll to be the featured author. In addition to Troll's opening night address and two festival sessions, he closed out the festival at the Howling Dog Saloon, where he joined Sea Grant communications designer Dave Partee and other musicians in the "Spawntaneous Fairbanks Pickup Band."
Alaska Sea Grant collaborated with the Alaska Cooperative Extension Service to put on "Campfire Cooking and Outdoor Safety for Kids," as part of the festival. The theme of the book festival was "Naturally Alaska." About 30 authors were featured in the festival. For more information see http://www.uaf.edu/bookfestival.
Last month in Petersburg, the MAP-cosponsored skiff safety course "Boating without the Boys" attracted twelve women and two men. The course included a 3.5-hour evening session, with time in the pool to try out PFDs and practice person-overboard drills. The second day included survival kits and signal training, information on weather, tides, an hour at a local marine shop learning about outboard motor maintenance, practice anchoring a skiff, and trying out Maydays on Forest Service radios. Three participants also joined the "backing down the boat ramp" practice for two hours. Sunny Rice, who was one of the instructors for the course, reports that the evaluations were uniformly positive. The course was also cosponsored by the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association.
Terry Reeve, Bethel MAP agent, is organizing the deployment of drifter buoys to track chum and king salmon smolts as they leave the Kuskokwim River. The buoys uplink water temperature and GPS locations to pole-to-pole satellites, and download data to SFOS in Fairbanks several times a day.
Science students at the Quinhagak School, in a village on the eastern shore of Kuskokwim Bay, are doing the launching. June 1 was the first launch, deployment will continue every two weeks for eight launches, and in two seasons a total of 64 buoys will be released. Reeve says the students are very excited to be involved in the project.
Reeve's work is part of the project Oceanographic Drifter Deployments in Alaskan Waters, headed by Tom Weingartner. The research is supported by the Arctic Yukon-Kuskokwim Sustainable Salmon Initiative (AYKSSI), to understand declines and recoveries of AYK salmon stocks. With improved understanding of nearshore circulation that connects Kuskokwim Bay and northern Bristol Bay with the Bering shelf, migratory pathways used by juvenile salmon as they enter the marine environment can be revealed. For more information see http://mather.sfos.uaf.edu/drifters.