Elizabeth Figus, PhD, contributed to this story. During the summer of 2021, two students from Kake participated in Alaska Sea Grant’s Community Engaged Internship (CEI). The internship is designed for undergraduate students from underrepresented and Indigenous communities, with the goal to engage students in place-based projects that respect and integrate local ways of knowing. Simon […]
For the fifth year in a row, Gay Sheffield has been investigating unusual seabird deaths in Western Alaska in collaboration with Bering Strait residents, Kawerak Inc., the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others. Sheffield is a marine mammal biologist and Alaska Sea Grant’s Marine Advisory Program agent in Nome. Part of her work involves […]
The Exxon-Valdez oil spill captured worldwide attention with its devastating environmental impacts. Less attention was paid, however, to the social and economic effects the incident had on local communities in the immediate aftermath as well as over the long term. For years following the spill, local residents needed help understanding, managing, and recovering from the event—everything from […]
Over 35 species of rockfish live in the waters off the coast of Alaska. Rockfish have been harvested for subsistence for thousands of years, and commercially and recreationally fished since the early 1800s. Because rockfish are slow to reproduce, they are vulnerable to overfishing and require sound management to keep populations healthy. Some rockfish populations […]