Their entanglement coordinator, Chelsea Kovalcsik, shares that “working with Paul, Aaron, and Dallas has been an immense joy in my life. They bring so much light and positive attitude to every situation; they also collectively bring decades of experience and knowledge that would be impossible to learn from a textbook. Their intimate connection to the seals is impressive in every respect—they can assess situations in ways I could never even think of. Paul knows exactly how the seals are feeling—when they are stressed, when they’re relaxed, when we should approach or back off. Aaron always has a pulse on environmental conditions—which way the wind is blowing, if the seals will be able to smell us or sense us. Dallas has an impressive ability to navigate these haulouts, safe and agile, while being able to read exactly where the seals are going and how to intervene. This team is nothing short of impressive and I am truly honored to work with them, every single day.”
Working Side by Side
Another of the Tribe’s conservation projects aims to improve our understanding of how disturbance (by people or natural events such as storms) affects laaqudan. Hanna Hellen (Tlingit), Environmental Program Manager, leads the project as part of her master’s degree through the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Tamamta fellowship program. The work is highly collaborative with NOAA Fisheries, as it uses the same Very High Frequency radio technology that we have used for nearly 10 years to monitor laaqudan for other studies. VHF radios send data about the duration of visits to shore by tagged laaqudan to nearby receiver stations. Tribal and NOAA Fisheries staff work together each fall to apply VHF tags to lactating female laaqudan on both St. Paul and St. George Islands.
Like disentanglement, tagging is physically demanding and technical work requiring great care to ensure the safety of researchers and laaqudan alike. Aaron, Paul, Dallas, and other staff also participate, contributing their years of experience and knowledge of laaqudan. Working side by side improves efficiency, and helps build strong camaraderie and working relationships between NOAA Fisheries and Tribal researchers.
Active laaqudan breeding areas are closed to the public by federal regulation. There is still occasional human presence through legally permitted or exempt activities such as scientific research, wildlife viewing, and Alaska Native subsistence use. These groups take measures to reduce the effect of their presence on laaqudan. However, it is important to continually assess and improve our understanding of any potential impacts.
Nursing females are studied because fleeing from disturbance could reduce their ability to feed and care for their pups. After tagging, Hanna analyzes the VHF data to analyze the movements of tagged animals within breeding areas. She also coordinates with researchers, tour groups, and subsistence users. They voluntarily enter information on their time spent in the breeding areas, using the Tribe’s Indigenous Sentinels Network mobile app. Comparing these data allows Hanna to identify instances when human presence matches up with tagged laaqudan fleeing from the beach, indicating possible disturbance events. Hanna also plans to examine potential disturbance to laaqudan by significant weather events, such as Typhoon Merbok, which led to a federal disaster declaration in 2022.
Hanna’s research will be invaluable for informing future management and conservation decisions by both the Tribe and NOAA Fisheries. She also inspires her colleagues with her passion, knowledge, and worldview.
Hanna’s colleague Chelsea Kovalcsik describes her as “a brilliant scientist who teaches me so many things every single day. She has an Indigenous perspective, always incorporating Indigenous Knowledge and different ways of knowing, while bringing her western educational background into the mix. She is a modern day Indigenous scientist and navigates those two worlds seamlessly. Every day I watch her bring both backgrounds together to solve a problem and I am constantly in awe of her dedication to herself and her roots, and her “formal” training. She is an incredible scientist and I look forward to continuing to work alongside her, learn from, and grow with her.”
Today we would like to highlight the contributions of these four Indigenous scientists. Below, ECO team members share their own stories about growing up and how their work in environmental science is grounded in their local and Traditional Knowledge.
Meet Aaron Lestenkof, St. Paul Island Sentinel
My name is Aaron Lestenkof. I am Unangan from the Pribilofs and have lived on St. Paul Island my entire life. Growing up here I have always been interested in the wildlife we have, especially the fur seals that make St. Paul their home every summer. That led me to my first job with the ECO in the early 2000s working with a team dedicated to finding entangled fur seals and disentangling them.
After spending several years as a commercial fisherman, I started working for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government as Island Sentinel in 2015. Island Sentinel remains my main role. Some of my duties are monitoring our shorelines for stranded marine mammals, working closely with our subsistence hunters to keep an ongoing record of Steller sea lion and northern fur seal subsistence harvests, northern fur seal disentanglement, marine debris cleanup, and invasive rat prevention, just to name a few.
To this day it is still such a rewarding feeling to free a fur seal from any type of marine debris.
Indigenous Scientists on St. Paul Island Work To Protect Marine Mammals added by Alaska Regional Office | NOAA Fisheries on
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