Greetings all – Saturday, September 17th is International Coastal Clean-up Day. Here in Juneau, Alaska we are pitching in to clean-up the Switzer Creek Watershed. Please join us at 9am to gather trash bags – supplied from our friends at Alaska Brewing Co. (via their Coastal Code efforts). We are joining in with our partners at the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, Juneau Audubon Society, Ratchet Constructs, and Juneau Makerspace to clean-up this important watershed as well as other coastal areas around town. Here are more details:
On May 21 – 2022 we celebrate the 5th World Fish Migration Day and at this point over 340 events have been registered from over 55 countries. Together with our colleagues around the world we want to save migratory fish in rivers and create real impact for the sake of rivers, fish, wildlife and people. Feel free to register an event too via www.worldfishmigrationday.com. The bigger this movement becomes the more impact we can make.
The Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Partnership (SEAKFHP, www.seakfhp.org) and partners will be hosting many regional and local events. Including a walk across the Juneau-Douglas Bridge to raise awareness to fish friendly road-stream crossings and a virtual film festival (details are included in the attached file).
On Saturday morning, May 21, 2022 a number of SEAKFHP partners gathered to celebrate World Fish Migration Day by walking over the Juneau-Douglas bridge to help raise awareness to fish-friendly road-stream crossings! Huge thanks to our many partners who shared their loveable mascots with us (USFS’s Smokey Bear and NOAA’s Ocean Guardian School sea creatures).
Our international partners invite you to join the BREAK FREE Live show on May 21, 2022, with guest appearance from Jeremy Wade (Host River Monsters) and Zeb Hogan (Host Monster Fish). Start: 16:30 hours and End: 18:00 hours (Central European Summertime).
Description: Sharing what we are learning through the use of film continues to be an exceptional way to communicate advances in science and fisheries management, showcase ways communities are engaging in local fisheries and stewardship efforts, and capture the beauty and diversity of fish across Alaska. To accompany this year’s AFS Alaska Chapter meeting we are hosting a film festival inspired by this year’s meeting title: Changing Tides – Outlook for the Future | Insights from the Past. In addition to films that highlight the work of our membership, we will share films that capture a historical perspective of fish use in Alaska and highlight advances made in learning from the past to advance how we expand knowledge of our fisheries resources and manage for a vibrant future.
Contributed by: Court Pegus, AFS Alaska Student Member: ccpegus@alaska.edu (UAF College of Rural and Community Development, Kuskokwim Campus and Orutsararmiut Native Council)
Brief film description: Several authors report that teaching styles which frame Western learning concepts in a cultural context are an effective means to engage Indigenous students in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) focused educational curriculum. Native Hawaiian children and Alaska Native rural middle school students were observed to perform better on subjects in which teaching methods incorporated principles of cultural congruence. Alaska Native students are the smallest demographic of students enrolled in college and represent approximately 250,000 of the 19 million college students attending schools in the United States and experience some of the highest dropout rates. This pattern prevails throughout all stages of the educational process (kindergarten-college) in almost all public schools in Alaska. Educational ceilings faced by Alaska Native youth hinder advancement to college and reduce opportunities to pursue research careers. The COVID-19 pandemic global outbreak has spread worldwide within the last two years creating observable changes to social practices including teaching customs within a relatively short time scale. In response to this deadly virus, many educational institutes have shifted teaching practices from face-to-face education to remote learning. While live-stream class sessions can be an efficient means of lecturing to large groups of widely dispersed students, this teaching style may not ensure adequate inclusion of physical or cultural activities to enhance the learning experience. It remains unclear how this new digitally-based format of teaching will be perceived by non-traditional and Indigenous students. As a collaborative effort, The Orutsararmiut Native Council and the University of Alaska Fairbanks hosted a science summer course to a diverse cohort of Native students. Course work focused on marine science and STEM education using teaching styles that included face-to-face education as well as remote learning (ZOOM classes). This short documentary presented captures teaching styles that contextualize STEM in a culturally relevant frame of reference and provide an outline and guide for other educators that teach in rural communities. A follow-up study from this effort will examine the instructor’s perceptions of student’s responses to the two forms of teaching styles as well as challenges associated with placing teaching activities in a cultural framework.
Brief film description: Along the Yukon River, NOAA, Alaska DF&G, the Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, and local fishermen have collaborated to study Chinook salmon for years. In 2020, the pandemic shut down these efforts, so the local communities initiated a citizen science project to fill the gap. There is also a web-story that goes along with this: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/community-steps-continue-yukon-river-salmon-research-during-pandemic
Mosaic – The Salmon Wilderness of Bristol Bay, Alaska
Contributed by: Daniel Schindler, Jason Ching, and Chris Boatright; University of Washington – Alaska Salmon Program; cboat@uw.edu, 206-930-8979
Brief Film Description: The film highlights the connection between habitat and the long term stability of Bristol Bay’s salmon populations and fisheries productivity.
*Both videos can be found on the Ecosystem Status Report webpage. This web page also contains the actual Ecosystem Status Reports and In Briefs for the three LME’s of Alaska.
Brief Film Description: The Alaska coastal rainforest center teams up with organizations around the world to understand the incredible forest of and ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest.
Brief Film Description: Community Forests and locally driven workforce are the crux of the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership. This video dives into why stream restoration is needed and how its linked to maintaining healthy fish, people and communities.
Brief Film Description: During the summer of 2021, a team from the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition (SAWC) worked with the Angoon Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) to remove a culvert from a remote area on Admiralty Island. This fantastic group of youths did a lot of work, alongside SAWC staff, to dig, carry, saw, and finally, remove a culvert that was blocking fish passage near Cube Cove. This project is part of a larger initiative to improve fish habitat across Admiralty Island.
This April, the
Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition and Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat
Partnership teamed up to bring together over 70 participants across Alaska and
the Pacific Northwest, including state and federal agencies, university
researchers, Tribes, and NGOs, for a regional discussion about the state of
eDNA research and existing and future applications across Alaska. The agenda, a
brief meeting synopsis and the informative and valuable presentations relayed
by leading researchers on the subject are available at the partnership’s
website at https://seakfhp.org/edna-in-alaska-1-day-workshop-april-1-2019/.
Presentations and
discussion touched on topics of interest garnered in early outreach efforts
including:
a desire for a primer on the science of eDNA sampling, including
methodology issues related to single and multiple species investigations;
interest in using eDNA for habitat mapping (for the presence of anadromous
species to support greater conservation actions through available habitat
permitting protections as well as early detection of aquatic invasive species)
and to support abundance estimates of commercially and culturally important aquatic
species like salmon and hooligan;
an overview of existing sampling efforts taking place across
Alaska; and
recommendations for developing sampling protocols and cost
considerations for potential future projects.
Next steps include exploring capacity to support a statewide Alaska eDNA Working Group, advance opportunities to share data resources especially information about primers that exist for Alaska species, and prioritize monitoring efforts especially for aquatic invasive species detection. For more information contact the SEAKFHP coordinator at: coordinator@sealaskafishhabitat.org
On Wednesday – February 20, 2019 scientists shared the latest on ocean acidification in Alaska including current and future conditions and species response.
Presentations were live streamed on the Alaska Ocean Observing System’s Facebook page and are now available on the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network’s web page at: https://aoos.org/alaska-ocean-acidification-network/
Presenters included:
Bob Foy, Director of NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and former director of the NOAA Kodiak Laboratory, speaking to species response to ocean acidification.
Jessica Cross, oceanographer with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab, studies ocean acidification across all three ocean basins in Alaska and will speak to what we know about current conditions and future scenarios.
The 2018 Southeast Alaska Watershed Restoration Workshop “Stepping up to the Plate for Collaborative Restoration” was held in Juneau this past March 5-7. You can find meeting resources and presentations here.
Please mark your calendars – the The 2018 Southeast Alaska Watershed Restoration Workshop will take place March 5-7 in Juneau.
Symposium goals are to build capacity to develop collaborative solutions for the restoration and informed management of Southeast Alaska watersheds. The event will bring together community leaders, NGOs and resource managers from across Southeast Alaska to share stories of restoration efforts – successes, techniques, and lessons learned, to network and develop partnerships for collaborative projects, and to provide tools and resources to build the capacity or our region’s land managers to carry out watershed restoration across the Tongass National Forest and its neighboring lands.
Session topics will include collaborative approaches, capacity gaps and how to bridge them, funding opportunities and strategies, and successful restoration in a changing region. If you are interested in sharing your success stories, lessons learned, and ideas for improving restoration in the region, please contact us!
Contact: Rebecca Bellmore at rebecca@sawcak.org
NOVEMBER 14-15, 2017 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM DAILY
EVENING EVENT PLANNED Tuesday, November 14th ANB Hall Doors open at 5:40pm (join us for a community dinner, Heinyaa Kwaan Dancers, and Klawock City School Band)
Please continue to check this site for updates and meeting resources.
If you are interested in being on the meeting mailing list please send an email to coordinator@sealaskafishhabitat.org
Want more information regarding sockeye salmon and the Klawock Lake watershed please see the recently published retrospective analysis and other meeting resources located here.
Joining us from afar, you can find a list of accommodations in Klawock here.
Southeast Alaska Coastal Cutthroat Trout Assessment Workshops – April 24-28, 2017 planned for Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka
The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) and the Coastal Cutthroat Trout Interagency Committee (http://www.coastalcutthroattrout.org/) are conducting an assessment of Coastal Cutthroat Trout (CCT) throughout the subspecies’ geographic range. The assessment includes workshops with knowledgeable local biologists from multiple agencies where we capture data using a GIS-based protocol.
We are conducting workshops focusing on different geographic areas within the state of Alaska. We will be holding three one-day workshops in SE AK the week of April 24-28. Locations and dates are Juneau, April 24; Ketchikan, April 26, and Sitka, April 28th.
The assessment focuses on gathering existing data from agency partners into a single GIS framework. We focus on distribution, habitat quality, population health indicators, and limiting factors. We have developed a protocol that includes professional judgement because CCT are often monitored incidentally. Because of this, we have found that holding workshops with 15-20 experts is a good way to gather an immense amount of information in a short time frame.
Please contact assessment coordinator Kitty Griswold for more information about the data already collected or view the interactive map here which displays the data that were geo-referenced: Coastal Cutthroat Trout WebApp
At the workshops we: 1) review and update CCT distribution that we have already collected Coastal Cutthroat Trout WebApp; 2) identify localized threats and conservation opportunities; and 3) conduct a qualitative assessment of habitat condition and CCT population health. Your efforts will help build a range-wide CCT conservation framework that will: 1) identify information needs, 2) develop criteria for identifying conservation units, and 3) identify priority conservation units for enhanced monitoring or rehabilitation.
