News
The latest news from Alaska Sea Grant
Severe storms, loss of sea ice, crumbling shoreline. These are just a few of the impacts Alaska is experiencing as the result of climate change. Alaska’s governor and Lt. governor are preparing to release a new climate change strategy for the state. One of our fellows has been working to develop it from the halls of state government in Juneau.
Our Nome-based Marine Advisory agent Gay Sheffield stopped by the studios of KNOM-FM recently to discuss the federal government’s decision not to grant protections to the Pacific walrus under the Endangered Species Act. “Listing the walrus isn’t going to bring the sea ice back,” she said. Listen to the full interview here.
Commercial fishermen, an Alaska state trooper and a ferry boat captain were among those trained as marine safety instructors last month. Training saves lives—since the 1980s the commercial fishing industry has seen a 76% decrease in deaths.
The last day of a research vessel cruise may involve the hardest work, but everyone on board has the same goal—dismantle the gear, pack it up, offload by the ton, stow equipment and get it ready for shipment, and then celebrate the accomplishments.
After the team works their way through the stations, lowering and raising the CTD overboard, they take a break to walk on an iceberg calved from a glacier in Prince William Sound.
On a September run, the Tiglax zigzags from station to station and back again in the Gulf of Alaska. Researchers sample water with standard tools and test a new industrial-size collecting apparatus.
On the open ocean in the Gulf of Alaska, a scientist’s assistant bottles up water samples while sleep-deprived.
Dr. Carin Ashljan, scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, spoke in Nome about her 11-year project looking at the bowhead feeding zones near Utqiagvik as part of the Strait Science lecture series hosted by UAF and Alaska Sea Grant.
An Alaska Sea Grant–funded research project on coastal erosion in western Alaska has concluded with good news for the village of Goodnews Bay.
In mid September two Unalaska high school students had an exciting opportunity to work with “charismatic megafauna”—they were invited to help necropsy a dead northern fur seal.