This year we note that it has been 50 years since Alaska became a state, 142 years since it was purchased from Russia, and 268 years since it’s marine life was first described by a professional naturalist (Georg Steller).  Russ will recount some of his own voyages aboard Russian vessels not much more seaworthy than Bering’s St. Peter as he describes how North Pacific marine life has changed since Steller’s time.  Of course, in this age of the ubiquitous iPhones and video iPods, Russ has not been content to spy through a looking glass but rather he has turned to high-tech gizmos to peer out beyond the horizon and below the surface of the sea.  For his Ph.D. thesis work, Russ had to build home-made data recorders that he attached to elephant seals to record their heart rate, body temperature, and diving behavior in order to figure out how they could hold their breath for up to 2 hours.  Since then he has been focusing much of his research on trying to understand how physiological constraints affect the ability of marine mammals to adapt to changes in their environment.  In the 1970’s there were a lot of changes happening in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea, including a major oceanographic climate shift, a dramatic increase in fishing effort, and a sudden end to commercial whaling.  Although it may never be possible to identify whether all of or none of those factors were the cause of the population declines of Steller sea lions and northern fur seals in Western Alaska, he hopes that his current work will allow us to predict how future changes may affect these animals.  In his talk, he’ll explain how he does this by designing and deploying data and video recorders that allow us to track the migrations of these animals and their main predator, the killer whale, and also to peek beneath the waves and study their feeding behavior.

Dr. Russ Andrews is a research assistant professor with a joint appointment in the University of Alaska Fairbanks' School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska.  Using high-tech gizmos, he has studied the physiology, behavior and conservation biology of marine mammals, seabirds and sea turtles. The unifying theme of his research interests is: How and why do air-breathing animals dive beneath the surface of the ocean.

Background Reading:  Experimental Approaches to Conservation Biology

Alison Banks,  Northern fur seals seasonal movements and foraging strategies: consequences to females and their pups  

Alison is currently a graduate student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.  Her academic interests primarily involve pinniped foraging ecology and reproductive physiology. Alison completed undergraduate work at the University of California Santa Cruz where she worked on a project investigating the foraging ecology of Antarctic fur seals.  She has been in Alaska since 2001 where she has had the opportunity to collaborate with researchers studying Steller sea lion critical habitats, intertidal communities in Prince William Sound and seabird foraging ecology and reproductive success on the Pribilof Islands. Alison is currently completing her PhD work which examines northern fur seal foraging strategies and reproductive physiology.  She lives in Fairbanks and spends summers working in the field and exploring Alaska.  

Alison's favorite remote location in Alaska is Bogoslof Island, where she conducted field work during the summers of 2005 and 2006.  Her favorite kayaking and camping area is Prince William Sound, but she still has so many places to see and explore.  For instance, she would love to kayak around the islands and fjords of Southeast Alaska.  

Background Reading:  Oceanographic features related to northern fur seal migratory movements ; Separation of foraging habitat among breeding sites of a colonial marine predation, the northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) ; The evolution of lactation strategies in pinnipeds:  A phylogeietic analysis

Mike Castellini, Ph.D.  A several thousand mile migration for you without eating would be tough…But is it hard for a whale or a seal?

Everyone likes to hear stories about the "amazing animal migrations" of birds going from pole to pole, whales crossing ocean basins and caribou crossing Alaska. Questions about how these animals navigate great distances is always a good point to discuss, or maybe even how birds will sit down and wait for a storm system to move through before continuing their flights. In this talk however, we will look at another aspect of migration: How do marine mammals carry enough energy with them to go for long distances without eating? Do you suppose they are "sneaking snacks" along the way and how would we know? For that matter, how do they get enough water to drink? You couldn't be at sea for 3 months and not drink…how can an elephant seal swim from San Francisco to the Aleutians and back without drinking? And, why bother to swim all that way just to get food in the first place when you could just eat fish off the coast of San Francisco? We will talk about calories, fat, blubber, exercise and water and how marine mammals have adapted their use of these to into their interesting migrations.

Mike received his PhD in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1981.  He has been a faculty member at the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 1989, Science Director for the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward, Alaska 1995-1999, Director of the Institute of Marine Science at UAF from 2002-2005 and is currently the Associate Dean for the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.  Mikes research focuses on how marine mammals have adapted to life in the sea. Ever since his graduate work in San Diego, he has studied marine mammals around the world examining their biochemical, physiological and behavioral adaptations for deep and long duration diving, extended fasting, exercise physiology, hydrodynamics and even sleeping patterns. In Alaska, his work has extended into issues of population health (why are marine mammal populations declining in some areas?), contaminant chemistry, reproductive chemistry and digestive physiology. Mikes graduate students work from Alaska to Antarctica on these issues. He as written over 75 scientific papers on his work and is involved in local, state and National panels and committees dealing with policy issues related to marine mammals, ecosystem management and agency oversights.

His favorite location in Alaska is on the Forrester Island complex, about 70 miles southwest offshore of Ketchikan and as far south in the Alaska panhandle as you can get…the islands are covered in Steller sea lions, birds, berries and fortunately, no bears. Wonderful weeks spent there working on sea lions and exploring elfin-like old-growth forests….just amazing.

Dan Crocker, Ph.D.  Foraging Ecology of northern elephant seals: physiology, energetics, and behavior.

Investigating the long foraging migrations of northern elephant seals represents an interesting mix of physiology and behavior. In addition to amazing feats of breath-holding required to reach their deep-sea prey, elephant seals forage over an unusually large spatial scale that is limited by the need to return to shore to pup. Dan will discuss analyses from a large tracking and diving behavior data set from nearly 200 northern elephant seals on their foraging migrations, focusing on the implications for diving physiology and foraging energetics. We will discuss the impacts of size, age, pregnancy and oceanographic conditions on diving and foraging behavior and link these findings back to the amount of milk a female is able to give her pup.  We will discuss the ways that elephant seals find food in a big ocean and the rates of success required for reproduction. 

Dan is currently a Professor of Biology at Sonoma State University in California.  He received a BS in Applied biology from Georgia Tech, a MS in Marine Sciences from University of California Santa Cruz and a PhD in Biology from University of California Santa Cruz. Dan's research is focused on the physiological and behavioral ecology of pinnipeds, seals and sea lions. His approach is to integrate physiology and behavior with the aim of addressing ecological theory. He is investigating physiological factors that impact the reproductive and foraging strategies used by marine predators. Much of his current research is focused on the physiology and behavior of northern elephant seals.

Dan's wife, Tere, is an equine veterinarian.  His favorite place is Denali, Alaska, where he and Tere spent their honeymoon.  They have an 8 year old daughter, Cassidy, who wants to be an artist and marine biologist when she grows up.

Background Reading:   Impact of El Niño on the foraging behavior of female northern elephant seals

As a general pattern, most bowhead whales of the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Seas stock migrate from wintering areas in the Bering Sea into summer feeding areas in the Beaufort Sea each year. Bowheads are unique in that they do not leave Arctic or sub-Arctic waters and remain in ice-covered seas the entire year. Equally unusual is that bowhead whales have the ability to break through ice in order to breathe. They use this ability mainly during winter and spring which allows them to survive in ice-covered seas. Still there are ice conditions which can block the migration, and scattered incidents of drowning have been reported across the Arctic.  They begin their migration in March through “leads” or cracks in the ice which have sometimes refrozen. No one really knows how they navigate the ice but they do, by the thousands.

Once into their summering grounds they feed on mainly copepods and euphausiids but also a large number of other small invertebrates. In autumn, they travel SW towards Russia and feed along the Chukotka coast and then drop south back into the Bering Sea. However, some individuals do not follow this exact pattern and pose some interesting scientific questions, which we will discuss in this talk. 

Yankee whaling records show this pattern of whales catches through the season, however, distribution patterns have changed a lot since then. Whaling records suggest that bowheads once summered in the Bering Sea by the thousands. Few are found there today. Again, why this is so is not well understood.

New scientific tools like satellite tags and acoustic tracking and Eskimo Traditional Knowledge have given scientists better insights into bowhead migratory behavior.  This talk will cover what is currently known and what is still unknown about the migration of western arctic bowhead whales.

Craig has worked as a Wildlife Biologist with the North Slope Department of Wildlife Management in Barrow, Alaska for 25 years.  Craig earned a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from the Utah State University in 1976 and is currently working on a Ph.D. in bowhead whale energetics, age estimation and morphology (comprehensive exams 2001).  Beginning in 1982, Craig worked on and later coordinated the bowhead whale ice-based population assessment project on the sea ice near Point Barrow for nearly two decades.   He also has conducted over 250 postmortem exams on bowheads harvested by Alaskan Eskimos (since 1980) and published a number of papers on these exams ranging from evidence of killer whale predation to structural anatomy. Craig has attended IWC meetings since 1987 focusing mainly on aboriginal whaling management procedures, humane killing and population estimation. He has also participated in Eskimo traditional knowledge studies and fisheries studies on the North Slope. Craig has lived in Barrow since 1977 and is married to Cyd Hanns, a wildlife technician. Together they enjoy community and outdoor activities with their two sons Luke and Sam.  

Craig's favorite place is the Arctic coast of Alaska and Canada best because it’s remote, beautiful cold and retains a thriving subsistence whaling culture. 

Background Reading:  Age of growth estimates of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) via aspartic acid racemization

Carey Kuhn, Ph.D.  Flexible foraging behavior: how fur seals and sea lions respond to environmental variation

Female fur seals and sea lions are faced with the challenges of balancing time on land nursing a pup with time at-sea obtaining resources. While females make short foraging trips to refuel, pups wait on shore fasting until mom returns. In order to maintain this balance, females have a limited amount of time to travel to foraging grounds and locate prey. Carey will discuss how different fur seal and sea lion species (with emphasis on northern fur seals) alter their behavior at sea to respond to environmental variation. She hopes to also discuss the potential impacts of these changes in behavioral movement patterns on both raising a pup and population growth.

Carey is a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow working with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) in Seattle, Washington. She was raised in Arizona and received her BS in Zoology from Arizona State University in 1997. After a brief time working as a biological technician for the National Park Service in New York, she began working towards a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Carey began studying pinnipeds (sea lions, fur seals, and true seals) in 1999 and received her Ph.D. in 2006 for her research examining the at-sea behavior of two locally abundant species, the northern elephant seal and California sea lion. During this time she also collaborated with researchers examining the at-sea behavior and physiology of a variety of other species including crabeater seals, leopard seal, and Australian fur seals and sea lions. Currently, Carey is working with the Alaska Ecosystems group at NMML to examine the summer foraging behavior of female northern fur seals.  Her area of expertise is foraging behavior of seals, sea lions, and fur seals

Background Reading:    

Bruce Mate, Ph.D.  The changing range and role of gray whales

The intimate details of whales’ lives are played out underwater and therefore go largely unappreciated by scientists and whale watchers alike, but satellite-monitored radio tags are revealing many of the previously unknown details of their seasonal distributions, migration details and underwater behaviors. Even whales we thought we knew pretty well, like gray whales, are changing their distributions in response to population recovery, climate change, and associated issues affecting their foraging strategies. In 2005, mother gray whales were tagged in Mexico after they had calved and tracked north to their feeding areas. To the surprise of many folks, all of the longest lasting tags revealed the emerging importance of the Chukchi Sea and how little whales are now using the Bering Sea, which has long been considered their primary feeding area. Other dramatic revelations involved the movement of whales through the spring ice lead in the Chukchi, determination of foraging home ranges for individual whales, the collective scope of the whales’ summer foraging habitat, the importance of ice as an apparent environmental cue for the last migrants to leave the Chukchi, and details of the migrations north and south with regard to speed, timing, and distance from shore. Gray whales are the first whales to recover from over-exploitation and as such we may now be seeing what they do (feeding-wise) and where they live (distribution-wise) as a recovered population for the very first time. Our previous impression of gray whales as bottom feeders almost exclusively on amphipods may have been a result of artificially plentiful amphipods because the gray whale population was depressed. Today we see gray whales midwater feeding on swarms of mysids and surface skim feeding krill. Tag technology has become an important scientific tool to discover wide-ranging whale movements and integrate them with environmental data.

Dr. Bruce Mate was born in and raised in Illinois, until moving to Oregon in the 60s. He received a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in biology (with a NSF pre-doctoral fellowship) from the University of Oregon before completing a NIH post-doc in biochemistry at the Environmental Health Science Center at Oregon State University.  His OSU career has been focused in Oceanography and Fisheries & Wildlife. Bruce was Director of the OSU Marine Mammal Program since its inception in 1973, and now serves as Director of the Marine Mammal Institute, formed in 2006. He has held an endowed chair since 1994, and is a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and an adjunct professor in the College of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University.  His research focuses on identifying the migration, feeding, and breeding habitats of endangered whales. He is world-renowned for pioneering the development of satellite-monitored radio tags to track large whales, and for using resulting data to reduce human impacts that inhibit the recovery of depleted whale populations. Bruce’s team has tracked 13 populations of seven endangered whale species of whales in all of the world’s oceans. Beginning last year, the tags developed in Mate's lab have incorporated GPS technology and time/depth recording capabilities to critically evaluate natural movements, trophic interactions and behaviors, as well as those possibly in response to human activities. These tags will enable more specific details of behavior and precise tracking of whales across the globe. 

Bruce is a pilot with 5K hours, an avid sports car enthusiast, a photographer, and enjoys the outdoors. In the 40 years he has studied marine mammals, he has been in every ocean and worked with pinnipeds, manatees, sea otters, small cetaceans and large whales.  He has worked in the Beaufort, Chukchi, Bering seas and in SE Alaska, and has enjoyed the variety and beauty throughout the State’s extensive near and off-shore environments. Seeing humpbacks cooperate in bubble-net feeding has always been a special experience for him.

Background Reading:   The Evolution of satellite-monitored radio tags for large whales: One laboratory's experience

Craig Matkin,  Interception and predation on migrating gray whales by aggregations of killer whales in Western Alaska: The risk of predictable migratory pathways.

Eastern North Pacific gray whales make an extensive migration from Baja California to the Bering and Chukchi Sea each spring.  Although they have made a dramatic recovery from severe depletion, and have been removed from the endangered species list, they face considerable challenges with the possibility of dwindling food supplies and from predation by killer whales.  There are two known regions where killer whales annually intercept the migratory gray whales.  The first is in Monterey Bay California and the second at the end of the Alaska Peninsula as the migrants head into the Bering Sea.  During our research on killer whales in the Eastern Aleutians five years ago, we discovered that at least 70 killer whales annually move into the waters near False Pass and Unimak Island to intercept young gray whales.  They often kill them in shallow waters, where they may feed on the carcass for days.  We are just beginning to understand the importance of gray whales to killer whales in this region and the significance of predation on the gray whale population.  The predictable timing and migration pattern makes gray whales particularly susceptible to ambush by small groups of killer whales.

Craig is an independent researcher and executive director of the research and education non-profit, North Gulf Oceanic Society. He works with National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Alaska Sea Life Center, North Pacific Marine Mammal Research Consortium, and Exxon Valdez oil spill Trustee Council. Craig has researched Alaskan killer whales and humpback whales for 25 years. He was a student of Ken Norris’s at University of California Santa Cruz and a graduate student at University of Alaska Fairbanks under Bud Fay. Craig was also a long time commercial fisherman and he currently lives in Homer, Alaska.  His area of expertise is cetacean biology, including killer whale ecology and behavior and long term studies of killer and humpback whales.

Craig's favorite place in Alaska is the center of his longest running research project and his spiritual home, Prince William Sound, where he has researched, fished and at times lived since 1975. He has watched the same killer whales (and humpback whales) in this area that were born, matured, and produced young during the course of the study. And of course he has watched some of them die...a number as a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Craig says, "I am strongly connected to the place and the animals."

Background Reading:  Ecotypic variation of predatory behavior among killer whales (Orcinus orca) off the eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska and Ongoing population-level impacts on killer whales Orcinus orca following the ‘Exxon Valdez’ oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska

Scott Shaffer, Ph.D.  Have wings will travel: Around the Pacific Ocean with migrating Sooty Shearwaters

My talk will focus on the journeys of sooty shearwaters that migrate from breeding colonies in New Zealand to the North Pacific. These birds conduct one of the longest migrations yet recorded. These birds appear in great numbers (100’s of thousands) off Alaska, Japan, and California during our summer time.  In fact, these birds exist in a perpetual summer by chasing resources in each hemisphere at the optimal time of year.

Born and raised in San Diego, California, Scott obtained a B.Sc. in Biology at San Diego State University. In 1993, he and his wife moved to the San Francisco Bay area where Scott enrolled in the graduate program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He eventually earned a M.Sc. in Marine Science (1996) and Ph.D. in Biology (2000) from UCSC. Scott is currently an Assistant Professor at California State University, San Bernardino. He studies the foraging ecology and energetics of seabirds for the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) program. Scott’s research has taken him to Alaska, Svalbard (Norway), the French Antarctic Territories, Antarctic Peninsula, New Zealand, Mexico, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and Palmyra Atoll. Although most of Scott’s research has been conducted on albatrosses and petrels, more recently he has begun studying boobies and gulls. One of his fondest memories of fieldwork was studying pigeon guillemots for the US Fish and Wildlife Service while stationed at Naked Island, Prince William Sound, Alaska (summer 1997). "Prince William Sound is one of the most amazing places I have ever been to. The Chugach Mountain Range is a spectacular backdrop along the Sound."  His area of expertise is the ecology and physiology of seabirds and marine mammals using electronic tags to study movement, distribution, and behavior of individuals as well as various methods to measure energy expenditure and effort in free-ranging animals.  Scott has a daughter and son, whom he hopes one of which will follow in his footsteps (or play Major League Baseball).

Background Reading:  Migratory shearwaters Integrate oceanic resources across the pacific Ocean in an endless summer

Robert Suydam, Movements and distribution of beluga whales with a focus on the eastern Chukchi Sea stock.

Beluga whales have long been regarded as coastal, shallow water marine mammals that are closely associated with sea ice.  As with many wildlife studies, once satellite tags were attached to belugas, our understanding of their movements and behavior changed dramatically.  Animals from approximately half of the 29 recognized stocks have been have been tracked by satellite.  More than 200 beluga whales worldwide have so far been tagged.  In Alaska there are 5 stocks: Cook Inlet, Bristol Bay, eastern Bering Sea, eastern Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea.  Whales have been satellite tracked from all but the eastern Bering Sea stock.  I will focus on movements of eastern Chukchi Sea whales but will also provide examples of movements of belugas from subarctic stocks that do not migrate as far as the more northern stocks.  Near the village of Point Lay, 26 animals have been live-captured and tagged, including 13 and 5 adult males and females, respectively, and 4 each of subadult males and females.  In 1998, we were surprised at the movement of the tagged animals when three large males moved north to 80^o, halfway between the northern coast of Alaska and the North Pole.   At this northerly location, the water is approximately 12,000 feet deep and almost completely covered with ice.  The second year of tracking belugas was just as surprising.  Two whales traveled exactly the same route to the same northerly location despite the lack of apparent navigational features.  All of the animals that traveled to the far north were adult males. Females and younger animals tended to remain near the shelf break of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.  In 2007 and 2008, we had a transmitter remain attached to an adult male for more than 13.5 months revealing the winter location for the first time.  That beluga spent the winter northwest of the Saint Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea.  Satellite tracking belugas from the eastern Chukchi Sea has shown that belugas travel much greater distances, much farther north, and into much deeper water than previously imagined.  Information from satellite tracking of belugas through the Arctic and subarctic will provide useful information for understanding and predicting impacts from climate change, oil and gas exploration and development, and other human activities.

Roberts first trip to the Arctic was in 1988 when he traveled north from California to study Black Guillemots, a small seabird, in a colony about 20 miles east of Barrow.  Studying the breeding behavior of guillemots was for his Master’s degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  In 1990 he was offered a Wildlife Biologist position with the North Slope Borough, Department of Wildlife Management (NSB) and has been living in Barrow since then.  Robert was hired to be the bird specialist for the NSB but quickly got involved in studies of bowhead and beluga whales.  Most of the biologists working for the NSB have gotten involved with studying whales to some degree because whales are such an important part of the culture and lifestyle of the Inupiat people living in the north.  Robert has been fortunate enough to spend many years studying the life history traits, population dynamics and movements of beluga whales, primarily working with the hunters at Point Lay, Alaska.  They have sampled and measured more than 600 belugas over the years.  In addition to working closely with the hunters, he has also been privileged to work with other beluga biologists from across the Arctic.  Robert is currently finishing his doctoral degree at the University of Washington studying belugas.  In recent years, climate change and growing interest in oil and gas exploration and development have occupied a great deal of his time.  They use information from bowheads, belugas and birds to guide industries’ activities so they will have as little impact on the animals and the people of the north.  Robert's area of expertise has been Bowheads, belugas and birds with a focus on life history traits, population dynamics and movements.

Robert says that the great thing about Alaska is its variation in scenery, environments, weather, and people.  The big sky country of the north offers unobstructed views (and wind) and wildlife populations that are unparalleled.  The big trees and mountains of southeast are spectacular.  The areas in between provide fascinating sights, history and adventures.  He hase not yet been to a place in Alaska that he didn’t like or find intriguing.  If he had to make a decision about his favorite place in Alaska it would have to be the places he has not yet visited.

Background Reading:  Distribution and Movements of Beluga Whales from the Eastern Chukchi Sea Stock During Summer and Early Autumn