Vol. 29, No. 2
February 2009
Applications for 2010 Knauss fellowships are due February 20, 2009, in the Alaska Sea Grant office. The fellowship is ideal for graduate students with an interest in national policy on ocean resources. Fellows spend a year in Washington, D.C., working for an agency or congress. For more details see http://seagrant.uaf.edu/research/fellowships.html.
Bree Witteveen has joined SFOS as a postdoctoral fellow, working on the Gulf Apex Predator-Prey (GAP) project directed by Kate Wynne. Witteveen’s research is on the ecology, conservation, and management of humpback and other whales in the western Gulf of Alaska. She will analyze prey availability and distribution data that has been collected over the course of the study, and document potential natural and anthropogenic threats to baleen whale species near Kodiak Island. Witteveen earned her Ph.D. at the University of Central Florida, and her master’s at UAF with advisors Kate Wynne and Terry Quinn.
Cordova MAP agent Torie Baker was recently re-elected to a fourth three-year term on the Copper River/Prince William Sound Fish and Game Advisory Committee. She was also elected as chair for fisheries deliberations. Baker previously served six years as secretary of the committee.
The Copper River/Prince William Sound committee has a well-earned reputation for generating proactive proposals for protecting salmon spawning habitat, harvest reporting, and other wildlife conservation measures. In the mid-1990s, in cooperation with local managers, it supported aggressive hunting restrictions in order to successfully rebuild a dwindling moose herd important for local subsistence harvest.
The Alaska Boards of Fisheries and Game, along with the advisory committee system, were established by the legislature when Alaska became a state in 1959. The committees represent local perspectives on fish and wildlife management and make recommendations to the state boards. Advisory committees are located in 81 Alaska communities.
Portland, Oregon, is the site for the meeting A Sustainable Future: Fish Processing Byproducts, February 25-26, 2009, as part of the Pacific Fisheries Technologists Conference. Keynote presenters are Albert Tacon (use of seafood wastes in aquaculture), Anthony Bimbo (potential for Alaska seafood byproducts), Joyce Nettleton (seafood and health), and Joe Regenstein (fish gelatin).
Among other speaker topics are commercial opportunities, emerging technologies, composting, stabilization by silage, crop nutrients, and restoring stream nutrients. Conference steering committee members are Peter Bechtel, UAF USDA-Agriculture Research Service; James Browning, Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation; and Scott Smiley, UAF Fishery Industrial Technology Center. Attendees are invited from industry, academia, and agencies, with the goal of stimulating development of lucrative products from byproducts.
Alaska Sea Grant is a cosponsor and will publish the proceedings of the conference.
At the 2009 Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Mayumi Arimitsu won the best M.S. student poster for her work on “The influence of glacial features on oceanographic gradients in Kenai Fjords, Alaska: A closer look at Kittlitz’s murrelet foraging habitat.” Arimitsu’s advisor is Nicola Hillgruber.
Nathan Stewart, studying with Brenda Konar, won the best Ph.D. student poster award for “Patterns in sea otter resource selection in Kachemak Bay, Alaska.” Alaska Sea Grant provided $250 each for the winning posters.
The Juneau-Douglas Naughty Nautili team won the Alaska Tsunami Bowl in early February in Seward, in the regional National Ocean Sciences Bowl high school competition. Along with coach Ben Carney, the team will travel to Washington, D.C., April 25-27, to compete against regional teams from across the United States.
In addition to answering questions in the academic quiz, teams submitted research papers and gave presentations on ocean acidification. Many of the schools also submitted artwork that was judged in a separate competition. Fifteen teams competed in the Alaska Tsunami Bowl.
A combined team of Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas high schools, called Coo Coo for Coccolithophores, took second, and Cordova Visceral Mass took third. The best of show art award went to Ashley DuRoss of Petersburg High School. Alaska Sea Grant sponsored the art award for $300, and the best research project for $500—which go to classrooms at the winning high schools.
Sherri Pristash, Alaska Sea Grant meetings and education coordinator, oversaw onsite coordination for the quizzes, volunteers, teams, and score tallies. Phyllis Shoemaker is Tsunami Bowl director. For more information see http://seagrant.uaf.edu/nosb/index.html.