Monthly Report to the Dean - February 2008

March 9, 2008

 

To: Denis Wiesenburg, Dean, SFOS and Brian Allee, Alaska Sea Grant Director

From: Paula Cullenberg, Marine Advisory Program Leader

Re: Marine Advisory Program highlights, February 2008

Announcements and Upcoming

MAP Highlights for February

Coastal Communities and Economies

Petersburg Economic Development Council’s next big project looks to be a marine travelift and marine services facility.  Sunny Rice, as chair of the PEDC, facilitated a very well-attended community discussion on the need for such a facility and what it might look like, where it would be located, etc.  There is good support in the fishing fleet, which led PEDC to put out an RFP for a market analysis.

Terry Johnson gave a talk at the Alaska Forum on the Environment in Anchorage on prevention of spread of rats via Alaska waterfront facilities.  Terry, as is Reid Brewer, is working with the Stop Rats! www.stoprats.org collaborative group made up of agencies, NGOs and community groups, to prevent or remove rats from coastal Alaska.  Terry’s work and his attendance at the New York City Rodent Control Academy were highlighted in late January in a story in the Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/296186.html Specifically, Terry is writing a waterfront facility operators’ rat prevention and eradication manual and will be offering training classes around the state this spring and summer.

Glenn Haight and Paula Cullenberg spent three days in Louisiana working with a group of 9 people from around the country – many Sea Grant from FL, SC, MI, ME, OR to help the Louisiana Recovery Authority review infrastructure proposals to rebuild the fisheries.  We reviewed about 50 proposals for things like docks, ice houses, fishing piers, fishing cooperatives etc to assist the state in allocating $19 million in disaster funds.  This is the first rebuilding funds these fishing communities have received in 2.5 years.

Ecosystems and Habitats

Kate Wynne, Gary Freitag and Reid Brewer all attended the annual NMFS Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network in Seward.

Kate Wynne participated in the thesis defense of MS candidate Caroline Jezierski, convened and participated in the oral comprehensive examination of PhD candidate Lei Guo, wrote a letter of support for Lei Guo’s receipt of a UAF Graduate School dissertation and completed a final debriefing of the student intern to summarize results of lab analysis of fecal hormone assays with UAA Kodiak College biology professor.

 A fishing vessel coming to Unalaska via False Pass ran into a storm of king eiders, many of which collided with the rigging and deck of the vessel.  Upon arriving in Dutch Harbor, the bird strike was reported and Reid Brewer collected, boxed and froze 20 birds for transport.  He then shipped the birds to the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge for sampling and preservation for museum display.

Reid Brewer has been a member of the NOAA-led organizing committee of the Marine Debris Workshop for the past 4 months.  At the workshop, held during the Alaska Forum on the Environment in Anchorage, Reid led round-table discussions on ‘prioritizing future criterion for effort and funds for Marine Debris clean-up in Alaska.’  Over 50 were in attendance at the workshop and 12 in his round-table discussion.

Reid Brewer has worked with the Alaska Statewide High School Science Symposium for the last three years, editing abstracts for an average of 50 students each year.  Reid was named to the Organizing Committee for the ASHSSS.

Torie Baker spoke as a panelist on public involvement in the EVOS Trustee Council process at the Alaska Forum for the Environment in Anchorage. She relayed 15 years of experience as a member the Public Advisory Committee. The audience included several PWS stakeholders and EVOS staff.

Gary Freitag has been working with Chela Zabin from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center to develop an expansion of her Invasive Tunicate Project farther to the south and possibly into Prince Rupert BC. Gary has also been working with Linda Shaw from Alaska Region NOAA Protected Resources Office in developing Ketchikan’s invasive European Green Crab monitoring program. This work has involved running computer based GIS computer programs to pinpoint likely areas of first introduction of the species to Alaska. 

Rick Steiner attended and gave public testimony at the Alaska Climate Change Sub-cabinet in Anchorage.

Fisheries

Torie Baker taught a 10-hour AMSEA Safety Drills class and included a marine debris lecture with materials provided by AMSEA and the Marine Conservation Alliance.  Six fishermen in attendance.  Cordova continues to be a community with a high percentage of fishermen having taken safety training.

Ketchikan MAP agent, Gary Freitag, is teaching a 3-credit distance delivered course called FT-120 Fisheries of Southeast Alaska. This semester he has students from Shageluk to Ketchikan. This class is part of UAS Fishery Technology Program and is a requirement for both the certificate and Associate degree program.

Gary Freitag participated in the Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC) meeting in Vancouver BC. The US Chinook Technical Committee, of which Gary is a member, worked on selection of projects to be funded through the Letter of agreement (LOA)  process that funds research projects Pacific coast wide to support the negotiation process for protecting and sharing of the chinook salmon resources. Many of the projects involve genetic ID work for mixed stock fisheries. Alaska projects include escapement and coded wire tag (CWT) work on the Taku river, an escapement goal development for the Alsek River , and  a National Marine Fisheries Service project at Little Port Walter examining the effects of parentage-based tagging of small hatchery populations.

Glenn Haight offered the Business of Fishing workshop in Anchorage for 16 fishermen.  The 3 hour workshop is designed for those new to the business and is a fast-paced overview of the wide variety of topics need by fishermen to operate a solvent business.  http://seagrant.uaf.edu/map/workshops/2008/business/fishing/index.html

These are co-sponsored by the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission and the Alaska Division of Investments.

Seafood Science and Technology

The Alaska Seafood Processing Leadership Institute (ASPLI) 2008 held Session 1 beginning with a 3 day session in Anchorage followed by a 7 day trip to the International Boston Seafood Show.  Nine upwardly moving seafood processors are enrolled in ASPLI from 8 companies and 8 communities in Alaska (Ketchikan, Petersburg, Kodiak, Quinhagak, Atka, Dutch Harbor, Homer and Old Harbor.)  The group heard from John Garner, one of the original owners of Norquest Seafoods and now salmon manager for Trident Seafoods, who reflected on changes seen in his years in the industry and predictions for where the industry needs to go in the future.  Glenn Haight, Chuck Crapo, Angela Camos and Paula Cullenberg are the organizing team for ASPLI, which is funded in part by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Don Kramer taught Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) and Sanitation in Anchorage.  He was joined by Chuck Crapo for their annual Better Process Control School (training for canning operations).   See www.marineadvisory.org/haccp

Marine Literacy

Heidi Herter has been sponsoring an International Polar Year speaker series in Nome and the Bering Strait region. Each speaker has been interviewed and broadcast over KNOM, the regional public radio station, and has given two public talks.  The first talk is in the afternoon over video-conferencing equipment in the Bering Strait School District.  Six village schools have joined in for at least one of these discussions and some have invited community members to join in as well.  Damon Hardgraves, BSSD tech-support, has prepared pod-casts of these broadcasts which are available for download at http://blog.bssd.org/2008/01/30/international-polar-year-speaker-series/. The second talk is given each evening at the Nome Elementary School.  The series has expanded dramatically and we are now reaching village sites during the evening presentations through audio-conference and live-stream internet.  To date, 614 adults and students from 9 communities have participated in at least one of the speaking events.  Recent IPY speakers include Amber Lincoln: Bering Strait Artifacts, David Atkinson: Bering Sea Storms: Not Just Leftover Typhoons; Igor Krupnik: IPY 2007-09 and Northern Residents; Terrance Cole: Murder, Mutiny and Cannibalism (A.W. Greely expedition to the pole); Gay Salisbury: 1925 Serum Run.

Heidi Herter made a presentation to Northwest Alaska Career and Technical Education Center’s “Career Exploration” group of 10 regional high school students including local and college opportunities in fisheries and marine science. She also recruited for her Field Biology class, scheduled for August 11-16, 2008 at Salmon Lake, and taught a “form and function” activity with marine invertebrates. 

In February, the cast and crew of the Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs” was in Unalaska to shoot a special on the tissue cleaning of a humpback whale that stranded in September of 2007.  Reid Brewer has been working on editing draft proposals to Discovery Channel, aiding in logistics preparation, acting as local liaison for the Native Corporation and Tribe, organized 3 boats for transportation, travel and a team of six local community members to work on cleaning the whale carcass.  After all of these efforts, the whale was decomposed to only a blob and could not be used for the show.  Ah well!  The bones will be collected later in the spring and a rearticulation will be performed if all of the bones can be located.

For the 2008 National Ocean Science Bowl competition, Reid Brewer co-coached two teams from Unalaska. Though they ended up near the back of the pack, the kids learned a lot and had a bunch of fun.  Due to waiting for the plane to make it to Anchorage, the teams barely made it to this year’s competition and had to drive all night to make for the opening matches.  New this year, Reid designed a laboratory experiment for the kids to work on in mixed teams to function as an ice-breaker event. 

Reid Brewer worked with the cast and crew of the Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs” who will be doing a special on the tissue cleaning of a humpback whale that was stranded in September of 2007.  Reid has been editing draft proposals to Discovery Channel, aiding in logistics preparation, acting as local liaison for Native Corporation and Tribe, organized boats for transportation, travel and a team of six local community members to work on cleaning the whale carcass.

Torie Baker hosted Jennifer Adelmann from the Alaska Volcano Observatory at a public lecture in Cordova entitled, “Katmai Eruption: New Data from the Valley of 10,000 Smokes”. Thirty-six persons attended.

Terry Johnson gave an evening talk at the Islands and Ocean Visitor Center in Homer on cruising the Alaska Peninsula and Bristol Bay.  Terry has been developing a suite of information about cruising little known waterways in Alaska, in his role as tourism and recreation specialist.

Rick Steiner delivered “Oasis Earth: Planet in Peril” presentation to the two Service High School Seminar classes

Rapid Response

MAP agents answered questions such as: At the request of a local grower, provided oyster farm analysis spreadsheets; provided sport fish angler catch and release literature search for local tribal environmental program which hasresulted in two BOF proposals; local attendees to the first Alaska Young Fisherman’s Summit have submitted seven proposals for the PWS Board of Fisheries meeting in December, two attendees testified before the City Council this month in support of opening winter fisheries, and one attendee ran for a seat on the Local Advisory Committee but was not elected; facilitated local agency, tribal and association Board of Fisheries proposal development; at the request of a local charter vessel captain, obtained charter guide publication from ASG for local distribution at harbor office this summer; forwarded fishing cooperative publications at the request of a Texas Sea Grant agent working with Gulf shrimpers; 

Answered walk-in questions and calls on freezing fish onboard small fishing vessels in Great Slave Lake, harbor rates in Petersburg, presence of blue-green algae in Frederick Sound, and about the Fishing Entrepreneur newsletter.

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