Seward, Alaska (May 24, 2019) –The Summer season begins at the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) today with longer hours, new tours, and more on the floor programming. Summer hours until August 18 are:   Monday – Tuesday – Wednesday – Thursday: 9:00 am – 9:00 pm Friday – Saturday – Sunday: 8:00 am – 9:00 pm ASLC is excited to offer additional programming included in the general admission ticket. These daily programs will highlight the vital mission work of the Alaska SeaLife Center. Guests will have the chance to engage with staff as they care for our animals and do a special presentation. More information and a full schedule of our daily programs are on ASLC's website, www.alaskasealife.org. Included in these daily programs are: Meet the Center’s award-winning Education team at an Education Station. Guests will be able to learn more about species of Alaska, including marine mammals, invertebrates, and more. During a SCUBA Chat: Divers Included watch ASLC divers in action and learn more about their underwater work. Chat with ASLC Scientists during a Get “Down” with the Ducks presentation. Learn about the eider program and the fantastic qualities duck feathers can bring to a breeding season. Keeper Chats with our avian keepers will give visitors a glimpse into the animal care taking place at the Center. From learning about the gossip of the aviary to getting new fun facts about the birds, guests will leave with further found information. A fan favorite, Sea Lion or Seal Feedings will take place twice daily. Guests can watch as their favorite species get their daily meal, while talking with an expert. Visitors can see and learn about how ASLC adopts techniques developed for domestic animals to wild animals during a Vet Chat. Learn from our aquarium team about some of our exhibits and their inhabitants during a Feeding the Fish presentation. Not only will there be daily programs, but summer encounters and experiences are back by popular demand. Explore more at ASLC with opportunities like:  Shake “hands” with a giant Pacific octopus in the Octopus Encounter, and learn more about these mysterious and intelligent invertebrates. This 60-minute tour is offered daily at 1:00 pm and can accommodate a maximum of 5 people per tour, with a minimum age of 6 years old. Octopus Encounter tours are $74.95 per person. On a Puffin Encounter, meet our resident birds and participate in feeding in the aviary. This 60-minute tour is daily at 11:00 am and 2:00 pm and can accommodate a maximum of 4 people, with a minimum age of 10 years old. Puffin Encounter tours are $74.95 per person. The Behind the Scenes Tour is guided walking tour through the Alaska SeaLife Center's back hallways and familiarizes guests with the scientific research, wildlife response, and other marine science programs. This 60-minute tour is offered daily at 1:30 pm, and 4:30 pm and can accommodate a maximum of 12 people, with a minimum age of 12 years old. Behind the Scenes, tours are $14.95 per person. Sea Otter Experience tours will be offered twice a day: 12:30 pm and 7:00 pm. Join animal caregivers to observe a feeding or animal enrichment session in the outdoor otter pool. This 30-minute tour can accommodate up to 14 people per tour and open to all ages. The Sea Otter Experience is $24.95 each for ages 13 and older, and $19.95 each for ages 6-12. Octopus Experience tours give guests a chance to immerse themselves in a world of suckers, tentacles, and beaks while observing an octopus feeding. This 30-minute tour can accommodate up to 14 people per tour and open to all ages. The Octopus Experience is $24.95 each for ages 13 and older, and $19.95 each for ages 6-12. The Center recommends making reservations for all encounters and tours, call 1-888-378-2525. All tours and encounters require the purchase of general admission. Current general admission prices are available online. Tickets to the Alaska SeaLife Center support expert animal care, scientific research, and wildlife rescue. About the ASLC Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center operates as a private, non-profit research institution and a public aquarium. It generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The ASLC is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org. High-resolution photos and video available from media@alaskasealife.org or 907-224-6334.

Seward, Alaska (July 2, 2019) – In April, the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) began a busy wildlife response season with the admittance of a sea otter pup, Tazlina, and a bearded seal, Saktuliq. In May and June, four harbor seals and one spotted seal were integrated into the Wildlife Response Program. The seals arrived from various areas of Alaska; Homer, Ninilchik, Cordova, and Stebbins. If the harbor seals recover, they will hopefully all be released back to the wild at the end of summer. Receiving a large influx of patients can be a challenge for a small non-profit facility. Currently, only three full-time staff members work in the Wildlife Response department. Part-time staff, interns, and partners from other aquariums are critical for animal care. The seals alone receive daily treatments, four feedings, warm water swims, and cleanings which require extensive preparation by staff. In addition to new seal patients, Tazlina, the sea otter pup, is still receiving 24/7 care in ASLC’s I.Sea.U near the touch tank. ASLC partners from Vancouver Aquarium are graciously donating staff members to help care for her. While the Center has responded to numerous animals this season there are some that have unfortunately not survived. There were seven calls about harbor seals and three passed due to various health conditions or injuries. “Every year some animals don’t make it. Sometimes the reason animals strand is due to an advanced illness or birth defect that we won’t discover until we begin treatment,” states Wildlife Response Curator, Jane Belovarac. While it is disheartening to lose a patient, the Center is still proud of their high success rate in rehabilitating sick and injured marine life. The Center follows strict procedures when intervening with a wild animal. A marine mammal must be in critical condition to justify an immediate pick up. “Once you decide to take an animal off of the beach, its life is changed forever. If an animal, pup or adult, does not meet the criteria for an obvious pick up we will often give it a tide cycle or an overnight to see if it recovers on its own,” notes Belovarac. Two animals this season actually returned to the ocean after leaving them for observation, which is what the team likes to see. If a sick or injured animal is encountered, ASLC staff urge people to call first, observe at a safe distance, respect the animal’s territory, and keep pets and children away. ASLC operates a 24-hour stranding hotline where trained professionals will walk people through the proper steps to assist the animal.Call 1-888-774-SEAL if you see a marine mammal in distress. Over 80% of the funding for the Alaska SeaLife Center’sWildlife Response Program comes from charitable donations. The Center is thankful for organizations like Marathon Petroleum, BP Alaska, ConocoPhillips Alaska, SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, GCI, HDR Marine, and PetZoo whose generous support helps ASLC care for marine mammals.   About the ASLC Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center operates as a private, non-profit research institution and a public aquarium. It generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The ASLC is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org.

Researchers at the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) recently captured a small male Pacific sleeper shark for an investigative study on the species. The Pacific sleeper shark is a close relative of the Greenland shark, which has been found to possibly live for several hundred years. “If findings from recent studies on the Greenland shark transfer to Pacific sleepers, these animals could maybe reach an astonishing age of 200-300 years old,” states Dr. Amy Bishop, ASLC Scientist. Dr. Markus Horning, ASLC Senior Research Scientist, is leading the study as Principal Investigator, together with Co-Investigators, Dr. Amy Bishop, Richard Hocking, and Jared Guthridge. The ASLC team is working closely with Co-Principal Investigator and shark expert, Dr. Christopher Lowe from California State University at Long Beach. They hope to investigate the ecological importance of these sharks, how their populations are impacted through fishing activities, as well as their predation habits. The Pacific sleeper shark is a large marine predator in Alaskan waters, and evidence from initial tagging work by the Center’s researchers suggests they may be a key predator of juvenile Steller sea lions. Researchers first began fishing for sharks in 2018 with the intentions of finding specimens under six feet. The goal is to bring up to five young, small sharks to the Center for short periods of time for select studies on their metabolic rates and basic biology. They will then be released back in Resurrection Bay with telemetry tags to monitor their movements. After receiving assurance from local fishing captain, Andy Mezirow, that sleeper sharks could be found right in the Bay, they started pulling a team together to fish regularly. Many methods were used to find a shark, but bait stations placed up to 900 feet down ended up being the most effective technique. Thirteen sharks were caught that were too big to fit in the metabolic chamber intended for the research study. Those sharks were tagged and released. “Successful sleeper shark captures were rewarding after much trial and error, but we continuously found animals that were too large for our study. We were either going to need a smaller shark or a bigger boat,” notes Dr. Horning. On July 1, 2019, the team found a shark about five feet long that fit perfectly in the transport carrier. Now that the animal is at the Center, Taylor Smith, Lowe’s graduate student at Cal State’s Shark Lab, will be heading the metabolic trials. Visitors to ASLC may at times be able to see research in action since the shark is in our largest pool, visible from the second floor. Since this is a bottom dwelling shark, a cover needs to be used on the pool when research is inactive to reduce light and regulate temperature. To find out more about the Pacific sleeper shark and to follow this research, the public can read ASLC’s 60Ëš North Science Blog. Dr. Markus Horning received funding for this project from the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB). The project is permitted by ASLC’s institutional ethics committee (AUP # R19-05-05) and by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (CF-19-085).

Seward, Alaska (July 16, 2019)– The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) is hosting the 21st Annual 5K Wildlife Rescue Run & Walk on Saturday, August 3. This family-friendly race is a fundraiser to support the Center’s Wildlife Response Program. This has been another very busy year for the program. They have received 213 distressed animal calls resulting in the admission of 12 patients: 1 sea otter, 1 bearded seal, 1 spotted seal, and 9 harbor seals. The team has also responded to some unusual calls this summer, including two sub-adult elephant seals. Tara Riemer, ASLC President and CEO, said “Wildlife response is a key component of our mission work. While rewarding, it is also very intense, requiring 24-hour care from teams of dedicated staff. The Wildlife Rescue Run is an opportunity for the public to become part of the team by running and supporting our mission work.” The 5K race route follows a generally flat course along the scenic Seward waterfront and is open to walkers and runners of all levels. The course offers beautiful views of Seward's Resurrection Bay and its neighboring mountainous peaks, and there is a good chance of seeing marine life along the way. This year all participants, including virtual runners, will receive a limited edition t-shirt designed by the Salmon Sisters. Race participants are invited to register online via the link found at www.alaskasealife.org. Registration is $35 a person through August 2, and $40 the day of the race. Supporters who can’t be in Seward on race day can sign up online to be a virtual runner. Race bibs will be available for pickup in the Alaska SeaLife Center lobby on August 3 from 10 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. All participants will begin the race at 12:00 p.m. The presentation of race awards and drawings for the door prizes will be held at 2:00 p.m. This year, supply donations for the Wildlife Response Program will be accepted at the Wildlife Rescue Run & Walk. Items used to support the rescue and rehabilitation of marine wildlife have been requested, and a container will be available at the race to collect donated items. The list of items being accepted can be found at http://www.alaskasealife.org/how_you_can_help Wildlife Response Program sponsors include Marathon Petroleum, BP, ConocoPhillips, SeaWorld Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, Pet Zoo Alaska and GCI. Race sponsors include Alaska Serigraphics, Bright Road Wealth Management, State Farm Agent Kelsey DeLuca, Seward Family Dentistry – Dr. Michael Moriarty DDS, GraphicWorks, Petro 49, Seasalt Alaskan Grill & Bar, Seward Parks and Recreation Department, TelAlaska, Klondike Pizzeria, Kruzof, Safeway, Salmon Sisters, Seward Alehouse, Seward Properties, Strabel Racing Services, The Cookery & Oyster Bar, and Woody's Thai Kitchen. About the ASLC: Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center operates as a private, non-profit research institution and a public aquarium. It generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The ASLC is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org. The Alaska SeaLife Center operates a 24-hour hotline for the public to report stranded marine mammals or birds, and encourages people who have found a stranded or sick marine animal to avoid touching or approaching the animal. Call first: 1-888-774-SEAL

Seward, Alaska (October 1, 2020)The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) is pleased to be one of just fifteen recipients worldwide of the first annual Pinnacle Hall of Fame Award from the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC). CILC is the leading clearing house for interactive, virtual education programs for students and lifelong learners. ASLC’s education team has been recognized with CILC’s annual Pinnacle Award for outstanding virtual program content and delivery ten times since the Pinnacle Award was established in 2008. The Alaska SeaLife Center’s distance learning program has reached over 107,000 students and teachers across Alaska, the United States, and internationally since its inception in 2005. During the evaluation period for the most recent Pinnacle Award, ASLC’s virtual programs engaged approximately 7,000 participants ranging in age from pre-kindergarten to adult learners in 24 states, 6 Canadian provinces, South Korea and Australia. “We are proud to earn the Pinnacle Award because it is based on evaluations by the educators and end users who participate in the program,” said Tara Riemer, ASLC President and CEO. “We are honored to be acknowledged for years of delivering quality educational programs with the new Pinnacle Hall of Fame Award.” “While many Americans are just discovering virtual programming, our innovative and dynamic education team has delivered these types of programs for fifteen years,” said Jeff Dillon, Senior Education Manager. “Now more than ever audiences around the world see the benefit of learning remotely and are familiar with accessing online programs. We look forward to offering new ways for people of all ages to connect with the Alaska SeaLife Center.” Previous distance learning programs have been offered only for prearranged groups such as school classrooms. For the first time, ASLC is offering a virtual program for individual registration. The first Virtual Visit will be a free 30-minute program entitled “Seabird Superpowers” and will be offered three times in the coming week: Tuesday, October 6 at 3:30pm Wednesday, October 7 at 5:30pm Thursday, October 8 at 11:00am Program participants will visit the ASLC seabird aviary with an educator and an aviculturist to get an up-close look at the amazing abilities that allow our diving seabirds to explore the ocean depths, stay warm, catch fish, and dig burrows. While this program is free, registration is required and can be completed online at https://www.alaskasealife.org/virtualvisits.

Seward, Alaska (November 17, 2020) – The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) announces the opening of the nomination period for the 2021 Alaska Ocean Leadership Awards. ASLC established the Awards to recognize those who have made significant contributions to ocean sciences, education, and resource management in Alaska. Awards will be presented at a virtual event in March, 2021. Nominations for the 2021 Alaska Ocean Leadership Awards are open now through January 15, 2021. The award categories are as follows: Walter J. & Ermalee Hickel Lifetime Achievement Award: Awarded to an individual or institution that has made an exceptional contribution to management of Alaska’s coastal and ocean resources over a period of 20 or more years. $1000 cash prize. Sponsored by the late Governor Walter J. and the late Ermalee Hickel. Stewardship & Sustainability Award: Awarded to an industry initiative that demonstrates the highest commitment to sustainability of ocean resources. Sponsored by Jason Brune. Marine Research Award: Awarded to a scientist, team of scientists, or an institution that is acknowledged by peers to have made an original breakthrough contribution or a career spanning achievement in any field of scientific knowledge about Alaska’s oceans. $500 cash prize. Sponsored by Dr. Clarence Pautzke and Dr. Maureen McCrea. Marine Science Outreach Award: Awarded to a person, team, or organization that has made an outstanding contribution to ocean literacy via formal or informal education, media, or other communications about Alaska’s marine ecosystems. $500 cash prize. Sponsored by Alaska Ocean Observing System. Hoffman-Greene Ocean Youth Award: Awarded to an individual or team of Alaskan youth up to age 19 who has displayed dedication to promoting the understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s oceans. $500 cash prize. Sponsored by Dale Hoffman. To make a nomination for any of these awards, visit our website www.alaskasealife.org or email oceanawards@alaskasealife.org. 

Seward, Alaska (May 11, 2020) – The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) admitted a female harbor seal pup into their Wildlife Response Program on May 4.   On May 3, the pup was found near a ferry terminal in Haines, Alaska by Haines Animal Rescue Kennel. The organization responded appropriately by contacting ASLC and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) first before moving the pup. After NOAA approval was received, the seal was transported safely to ASLC the following day. This pup was the second harbor seal the team attempted to rescue from Haines over the course of just two days. The first pup passed before arriving at the Center.   When the surviving pup entered ASLC’s Wildlife Response Program , the staff were immediately surprised to see she was very small, only 12 lbs, and had full lanugo. Lanugo is the soft fur on newborn pups. While ice seals are typically born with lanugo, it is rare harbor seals are born with it. “This may be the smallest harbor seal I have seen. Because of her size, lanugo, and various exam and diagnostic results, we believe she is only a few days old and premature,” declared Director of Animal Health, Dr. Carrie Goertz, D.V.M.   The immaturity of this seal’s immune system due to her premature birth signals to staff that she has a long road to recovery. According to veterinary staff, while she had no physical trauma upon admission, she had obvious respiratory and cardiovascular issues. With her health issues, just seeing her make it through the first night was uplifting for the team. “Her situation is critical though she does seem to be getting stronger,” states Wildlife Response Curator, Jane Belovarac.   Caring for wildlife response patients while under unusual regulations due to COVID-19 is more complicated for the staff. “It requires us to be more thoughtful and efficient when more than one person is needed to accomplish procedures. We all wear masks, plan a lot in advance, and move apart as soon as possible,” explains Dr. Goertz. Since COVID-19 is affecting operations, the Center is assessing stranding events on a case-by-case basis to ensure staff safety. As always, ASLC encourages people to call first if they find a marine animal in distress.   The Alaska SeaLife Center is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and the only permitted marine mammal rehabilitation center in Alaska. Over 80% of the funding for ASLC’s Wildlife Response Program comes from charitable donations. The Center is thankful for individual donors and organizations like Marathon Petroleum Corporation, SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, BP Alaska, ConocoPhillips Alaska, PetZoo, GCI, HDR Marine, and Graphic Works whose generous support helps ASLC care for marine mammals like harbor seals.   About the ASLC Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center operates as a 501(c)(3), non-profit research institution and public aquarium in Seward, Alaska. The Center generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The ASLC is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org.  

      Seward, Alaska (August 5, 2020) The Seward Community Foundation (SCF) and Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) are jointly announcing a membership drive to boost ASLC’s local membership base. Starting today, SCF will contribute $25 to the Alaska SeaLife Center for each of the next 100 memberships purchased by Seward and Moose Pass residents. These memberships will also be eligible for a prize drawing. In July, the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) announced an urgent fundraising campaign to raise $2 million by September 30. Uniquely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, ASLC will not be able to maintain operations of the Center through the winter due to a lack of summer visitor revenues and faces permanent closure if these funds are not raised. SCF is responding to this call for help by motivating local residents to become supporters of the Center through a local membership campaign. “The Seward Community Foundation is pleased to help the Alaska SeaLife Center while promoting philanthropy within our local community,” said David Paperman, SCF Vice President and Grant Team Lead. “Each new membership is a way to show your support and love of what has become an essential part of the Seward community—a non-profit organization whose very existence relies on the generous support of average Sewardites. Therefore, each ASLC member has the satisfaction of becoming a philanthropist.” “While we are overwhelmed by the community support over the past three weeks, we still have not met our fundraising goal,” said ASLC President and CEO Tara Riemer. “We are thrilled to have the support of Seward Community Foundation to help reach our dual goals of 5,000 member households and $2 million of overall contributions by September 30.” ASLC and SCF thank the community members and businesses who have contributed to a prize drawing to be held at the end of the membership campaign. Prizes include: Bear Glacier iceberg kayaking trip for two with Liquid Adventures Two seats at a catered group dinner at Zudy’s with other ASLC supporters Fifteen pounds of halibut from the F/V Chandalar with fall delivery “Life After Death” 15x24 art print by Marissa Amor Art Sustainable eating kit with reusable beeswax wraps, water bottles, straws, and bag The SCF-sponsored membership campaign will continue until 100 memberships are purchased by Seward or Moose Pass residents. SCF and ASLC hope that this target is reached within two weeks. All levels of new and renewed memberships are eligible, including individual, dual, family, and giving circles. Memberships and gift memberships are available for online purchase at https://www.alaskasealife.org/memberships. About SCF Founded in 2008, the Seward Community Foundation is an Affiliate of The Alaska Community Foundation. SCF’s goal is to support projects that enhance the quality of life for Seward and Moose Pass residents, addressing immediate needs while working toward long-term improvements. To learn more, visit www.sewardcf.org. About ASLC  Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center operates as a 501(c)(3), non-profit research institution and public aquarium in Seward, Alaska. The Center generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The ASLC is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org.      -end-

The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) is preparing for a busy summer season as the new Rocky Coast Discovery Pools open. This past Saturday, May 29, the Center saw 1,713 visitors pass through the facility, a record number for May for at least the past fifteen years. Visitors are strongly encouraged to purchase tickets ahead of time to guarantee their date and time of entry. Saturdays in particular are booking up fast; last weekend the entrance wait time for walk-ins reached 2 hours. Ticket reservations: www.alaskasealife.org/tickets  While the increased tourism is welcomed, the team is still working to keep people safe by requiring masks and managing capacity. “We are grateful for the attendance level we are experiencing after a difficult 2020. While we can handle an increase in visitation, we must prioritize safety for both people and animals by continuing mask use and encouraging social distancing,” explains Tara Riemer, ASLC President and CEO. She continued, “Many of our younger guests under age 16 have not had the chance to become fully vaccinated, and their safety is of utmost importance.”  The recent opening of the Rocky Coast Discovery Pools is also expected to attract even more visitors. Phase one of the new 1,100 gallon exhibit build offers guests a hands-on opportunity to explore Alaskan fish and invertebrate species in 6 pools. ASLC is thankful to the contributors of this new exhibit: ConocoPhillips Alaska, First National Bank Alaska, Matson, Petro Marine Services, Shoreside Petroleum, and the Lindsey Family.   About ASLC: Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) research institution and public aquarium. It generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The ASLC is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org or find us on Facebook.   

The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) has admitted a male harbor seal pup into the Wildlife Response Program. The harbor seal pup was found far from the water’s edge near a beach in Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula. The animal was monitored for several days by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game until it became evident that intervention was necessary when no seals returned to the pup. The animal was transported to the Center after receiving National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration approval on June 15. Lake Clark Air graciously donated the flight for the seal to Anchorage.  Upon the initial admit exam, the main concerns of the veterinary team include severely low body weight,  dehydration, and gastrointestinal issues. The team is currently providing initial stabilizing treatments and examining the patient further to understand the severity of the animal’s condition. A full press release will be provided with updates on this animal after further monitoring and examination.   The Alaska SeaLife Center’s Wildlife Response Program can provide care for animals like this harbor seal because of donations from corporate sponsors and individual donors. People are encouraged to contribute to the care of this patient here: www.alaskasealife.org/donate. The Center acknowledges the ongoing generous support of the Wildlife Response Program from companies like ConocoPhillips, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, SeaWorld Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, PetZoo, Borman Family Foundation, GCI, Partners4Wildlife, Sea Otter Foundation & Trust, and Grizzly Pet Products.  About ASLC  Opened in 1998, the Alaska SeaLife Center operates as a 501(c)(3), non-profit research institution and public aquarium in Seward, Alaska. The Center generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The ASLC is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. To learn more, visit www.alaskasealife.org.   

The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) admitted a male northern sea otter pup to the Wildlife Response Program on October 31, 2023, the third pup rescued this year. The approximately three-week-old pup arrived late Halloween night after a long transport from the remote coastal town of Seldovia, AK, and is currently under 24-hour care by wildlife response staff.   The pup was first spotted swimming near the docks and vocalizing in distress, its mother nowhere in sight. Although Northern sea otter mothers will leave their pup’s side for short intervals to hunt and forage, concerned onlookers noted that the pup was still alone after nearly two hours and contacted the ASLC via its 24-hour stranding hotline (888-774-7325).    While on the phone with wildlife response staff, onlookers noticed an adult sea otter approaching the pup in an aggressive manner. It was determined that this was likely a territorial male, raising additional concerns for the pup’s safety. With approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the pup was picked up to be transported to the ASLC for rehabilitation. Though the pup’s mother was never spotted, a deceased female adult sea otter was found in the area shortly before its rescue, offering a potential explanation for the pup’s abandonment.   The main concerns found by the ASLC veterinary team upon the initial admit exam were dehydration, malnourishment, and lacerations on the pup’s muzzle, likely sustained during its struggle with the aggressive adult. The team is currently providing stabilizing treatments and examining the patient further to understand the severity of his condition.   Sea otter pups require 24/7 care, which will continue for the first six months of the pup’s life. During this critical period, pups rely entirely on their mothers for grooming and nutrition, needs that will instead be monitored and provided for by staff.    The Alaska SeaLife Center’s Wildlife Response Program can only provide care for stranded and injured marine animals with help from corporate sponsors and individual donors. People are encouraged to contribute to the care of rehabilitating marine animals here: www.alaskasealife.org/donate. The Center acknowledges the ongoing generous support of the Wildlife Response Program from supporters like ConocoPhillips Alaska, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, PetZoo, Partners 4 Wildlife, Matson, GCI, and a number of individual donors, funds, and foundations such as the Stanley J Williams Fund, Mesara Family Foundation, and the NC Giving Fund.  

The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) Wildlife Response Program now has six harbor seal pups under its care after the admission of two new patients — a male from Naknek admitted on June 17, and a female from Wrangell admitted on June 22.    The first pup was spotted by locals at a site in Naknek and reported to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) National Wildlife Refuge in King Salmon, AK, who contacted ASLC. Photos showed the pup was in poor condition, prompting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to authorize pickup. However, rescue efforts were complicated when the pup returned to the water and became entangled in a net before responders arrived. Fortunately, locals were able to free the pup, and it was transferred to a USFWS biologist and driven to a local airport for a flight to Anchorage. Here, staff from NOAA were able to coordinate the final leg of its journey to the ASLC for care.   The second pup was spotted in Wrangell, AK, hauled out on a rocky beach where seals are not typically seen. This raised concerns for two local beach walkers who reached out to NOAA. The seal’s skinny condition suggested prolonged separation from its mother, leading NOAA to approve rescue efforts. When a flight that night could not be coordinated, the observers mobilized help from fellow rescue members and were able to give it medical treatments overnight. Transportation to Anchorage was arranged the following day thanks to Alaska Airlines cargo staff in Wrangell. The seal arrived safely and was transported to the ASLC.   In addition to low weight, dehydration, and malnourishment, additional complications required quick action from veterinary staff. For the Naknek pup, a dangerously high body temperature was the most immediate concern. Meanwhile, the Wrangell pup arrived with persistent tremors due to a lack of nourishment. The team is currently providing initial stabilizing treatments to both patients and keeping a close watch to ensure the best possible chance of survival. Updates will be shared on the ASLC’s Facebook and Instagram pages as they become available.   The ASLC Wildlife Response Program can only succeed with help from corporate sponsors and individual donors. The Center acknowledges ongoing support from ConocoPhillips Alaska, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, PetZoo, Partners 4 Wildlife, Matson, GCI, and a number of individual donors, funds, and foundations such as the Stanley J Williams Fund and the Theresa Bannister Legacy Fund. Those interested in contributing to the care of these patients can visit the ASLC’s website: www.alaskasealife.org/donate.   Call first! Before approaching an injured or stranded marine animal in Alaska, call the 24-hour Stranded Marine Animal Hotline at 1-888-774-SEAL(7325).     

Seward, Alaska — On January 27, 2025, the Executive Office of the President issued an executive order temporarily pausing agency grants, loans, and other financial assistance programs. This order takes effect on January 28, 2025, at 5:00 PM Eastern Time.  The Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) has been aware of the possibility of such a measure and has been proactively planning to address its potential impacts. We have already begun implementing steps to mitigate these effects and ensure the continuity of our critical programs and operations.  The care and well-being of the animals entrusted to ASLC remain the organization’s highest priority. "We want to assure the public that our animals will continue to receive the world-class care they deserve," said Dr. Wei Ying Wong, President and CEO of the Alaska SeaLife Center.  "Their health and safety are non-negotiable, and we are allocating resources to ensure this  commitment is upheld."  The funding freeze represents a challenge but reaffirms the necessity for ASLC to continue diversifying its funding sources to ensure greater long-term stability for its mission-critical work.  "We understand that times of uncertainty can be difficult," Wei Ying continued. "Our team is working diligently to evaluate the full scope of this situation and its implications. As we navigate  this road ahead, we are committed to transparency and keeping our community and stakeholders  informed."  The Alaska SeaLife Center remains steadfast in its mission to generate and share scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska’s marine ecosystems. The  organization appreciates the ongoing support of its staff, partners, and community as it works to build a stronger, more sustainable future.  

Make your way around Seward and visit local businesses hosting featured artists during the Seward First Friday Art Walk! Visit the ASLC lobby from 6 - 8 PM on July 1, 2022 to see this month's TWO featured artists: Dreaming Bear Studio & Rabbit Creek Studio Dreaming Bear Studios will have items displayed in the ASLC Lobby for the month of July. See more of the artist's work on their websites -   Rabbit Creek Studio: https://rabbit-creek-studio.square.site/ https://www.facebook.com/kimnielsenak/ Dreaming Bear Studio: https://www.dreamingbearstudio.com/   Seward First Friday Art Walks are hosted by the Seward Chamber of Commerce and Seward Art Council.

Alaskan bird enthusiasts flock to Seward this month for the annual Seward Seabird Festival! Join community partners to celebrate the rich seabird diversity of the Kenai fjords through family-friendly activities, local art, sightseeing opportunities, and chances to network with seabird researchers and professionals. From the budding birder to the seasoned seabird expert, this city-wide event has something for everyone!   Click Here to View & Download 2025 Schedule of Events           Join us for the Seward Seabird Festival Presentations on May 31, 2025 from 11 AM - 1 PM, featuring keynote speaker Dr. John F. Piatt, Ph.D., Director, World Puffin Congress. Presentations will be held at the Kenai Fjords National Park Visitor Center, 1212 4th Ave, Seward, AK. All are welcome at this free event, and no registration is required.     Register for this year's Paint-a-Puffin Artist Workshop with Ashley Seabolt Originals! Friday, May 30 from 6-8 PM at the Alaska SeaLife Center. Open to ages 10+, children under 16 must be with an adult. There is a $15 registration fee, and space is limited! Registration: https://bit.ly/4kG1fkA   Major Marine Tours will be hosting a special discounted cruise for festival attendees on Sunday, June 1st. Explore the best seabird viewing areas in Resurrection Bay, Northwestern Fjord, and Kenai Fjords National Park on the 8.5 hour small vessel cruise. Learn more and book a spot: https://majormarine.com/seward-seabird-festival/  

animatedcollapse.addDiv('A', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() animatedcollapse.addDiv('B', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init()         Individual scientists usually specialize in one particular area. They get very good at knowing a lot about a few things. This is a natural and very normal thing to do, especially when the amount of detail a researcher has to consider in their study is huge! There is no way for any one person to know the ins-and-outs of each and every project. One of the most important lessons we can learn from a disaster the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill is the importance of "thinking big" with science -- really big! We need to ask big questions, such as: “How is this one particular thing connected to that?” or “What influence does something that seems so different and very far away have on my local work?” or “How is this one thing connected to everything?” Scientists might not have the luxury of working on a whole bunch of different projects at once but, through cooperation in large projects like Gulf Watch, they can see the links, or connections, between what they have been focusing on and what others have been doing. In science, we call this "systems thinking." Systems thinking looks at the web of relationships where individual pieces respond both in their own individual ways and together as a whole. An ecosystem like the Gulf of Alaska is not just a collection of individual animals and plants. It is all living things interacting with each other and with the non-living things around them. Gulf Watch Alaska scientists combine data from all of their projects to help them better answer their own specific research questions. This gives each of them a better understanding of complicated ecosystem connections. You can think of each project like different pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. As more and more pieces are combined, a clearer and more complete picture emerges. Click the picture below to solve the jigsaw puzzle! Systems thinking allows the modern scientist to step outside of their lab. They connect with fellow researchers and see the importance of their work on a much larger scale. It requires teamwork and communication as they build a network with different specialties, interests, and research subjects. Watch the video below and listen to the Gulf Watch team as they talk about working together and putting the pieces of this complicated puzzle into place. VIDEO: Monitoring Connections Sonia Batten, Heather Coletti, and Dan Esler discuss connections between the four individual monitoring components of Gulf Watch Alaska. (1:55) Video Transcript (Sonia Batten) The Gulf of Alaska is a really complicated system. You’ve got places like Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound, which are these kind of inlets, and they’ve got local things happening there which are really important. And there are people studying the plankton and the ocean in those places, and they do really good detailed local studies, but we’re looking at a bigger area. We go from way off shore across the shelf, and it kind of smoothes out the little small-scale local effects and we’re looking at bigger climate effects and things that affect the whole region. So my data provides a link to what the local studies are doing and gives a broader context. (Heather Coletti) I think our work will really inform and strengthen our understanding of the connections between these systems. They talk about some of the zooplankton in the oceans out in the middle of the Gulf. How does that affect our coast and where we all recreate and live? And I guess I’d say the same thing for some of the environmental drivers, these big oceanographic systems that move through and the changes in the climate. How does that affect where we spend our time and where our resources are? (Dan Esler) I think a really important contribution of the work is to be able to take that long-term view of how things operate in marine ecosystems and how contaminant events are, what the timeline is for recovery from those sorts of things. And that fits in perfectly with the philosophy of Gulf Watch generally, taking this long-term, broad-scale view to understand these bigger patterns in marine ecosystems. I think that’s a really an important contribution for what we’re trying to do. You too can help with long-term ecosystem monitoring right in your own ecosystem -- through Citizen Science! Citizen science is the collection and analysis of data through partnerships between the general public and professional scientists. This collaborative way of doing science allows anyone with an interest in the natural world to engage in the scientific process. Many citizen scientist projects benefit from people gathering local monitoring data and contributing to a larger database. The data provided by participating citizen scientists helps professional researchers build a more complete understanding of ecosystems that they only visit once or twice a year. Recently, the scientific journal "Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment" published an entire issue focused on citizen science! Click the link on the right to access the journal. Explore some of the links below to find a citizen science opportunity to join! • Citizen Scientists • The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Citizen Science Central Projects • National Science Foundation • SciStarter • Scientific American Citizen Science Project List • Zooniverse • Journey North       Who is watching the Gulf?      

animatedcollapse.addDiv('A', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init()         With their hypotheses developed and their study subjects chosen, Dr. Mellish and the team began the detailed process of planning their fieldwork. The team's field season in Antarctica needed to coincide with the seal's reproductive season, which runs from late October to December. It would be important to arrive by early October to maximize their time before the late spring ice melt made it unsafe to work on the sea ice. The team chose research sites on Erebus Bay, a pupping and breeding area just a short snowmobile ride from the U.S. base at McMurdo Station. From the Erebus Bay location, they'd select forty healthy seals to participate in the study. It was decided that only healthy animals should be studied and that, of the adults studied, all should be females. This would help prevent outside variables from complicating the data. Navigate through the pictures below to learn about the tools the researchers used to select healthy animals for their project: The team was able to work directly with each seal to complete its initial health assessment. However, to collect research data from the healthy animals, the researchers would need to monitor the seals as they went about their daily lives. Since a lot of a seal's time is spent beneath the sea ice - where it's difficult for researchers to observe them directly - this data would have to be collected remotely. To do this, the team outfitted each seal with specially engineered instruments, called data loggers, that would record and store the team's data. VIDEO: STUDYING SEALS USING DATA LOGGERS Dr. Markus Horning explains how the research team used data loggers to collect data for the Weddell seal project. (2:19) Video Transcript My name is Markus Horning, and I am an Associate Professor of Wildlife with Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. I’ve worked with Weddell seals in the Antarctic ever since my first trip to the Antarctic in 1981. My expertise that I bring to the table is related to my ability to bridge engineering and biology. I’m a biologist by training, I have a Ph.D. in biology, but I’ve always dabbled in electronics. We really can accomplish much more in our attempts to study and understand these animals if we use what we call “telemetry devices.” Basically, we use fancy electronics that can go with the animal where they go and where we can’t. Often times where I come in is figuring out, ‘Okay, this is the question, this is the data we need in order to be able to answer this question we have about the biology of this animal.’ Then I ask, ‘How can we get that data?’ and I find specialty sensors that give us exactly that data that we need. In this project we actually have several separate devices that we glue to the back of an animal. These are multi-channel devices - they have many different sensors. The information that we’re really most interested in is the information we get from the heat flux sensors. We glue these onto the surface of the skin of the seal and they measure exactly how much heat the animal is transferring to the cold water or cold air. To be able to understand this data and the patterns we see in terms of heat dissipation, we also need to record the behavior of the animal. That’s why we’re recording dive depth, swim speed, because that really determines the physiological state of an animal. If everything works well we find our animal after about five days, I’d say, and everything is still attached. We immobilize the animal a second time and we just peel everything off, or we shave a little bit of fur off. We get everything back home and we download the data. We want to recover the equipment so we can use it again on another animal, but also because the devices that we use actually record the most important information in memory. So, unless we recover the device we don’t have access to the data that we really want.       WHO IS STUDYING SEALS?   HYPOTHESIS (n) - a proposed explanation to a question that must be tested   PUPPING SEASON (n) - the time during the year when seal pups are born   OUTSIDE VARIABLE (n) - something not being tested in a study that could impact the data   DATA (n) - values for something measured   MONITOR (v) - to keep surveillance over something   REMOTELY (adv) - from a distance, without direct contact   DATA LOGGER (n) - a device that measures and stores data on the activity or condition of an animal.    

animatedcollapse.addDiv('1', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() animatedcollapse.addDiv('2', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() Who is watching walrus? CONTINENTAL SHELF - the area of shallow ocean water around the edge of a continent before the seabed slopes down into the deep ocean HAUL OUT (v) - to leave the water and rest on land, rocks, or floating ice HAULOUT (n) - a place where marine mammals leave the water to rest STAMPEDE - a sudden rush of many individuals, usually in a panic DISTURBANCE - when an animal or group of animals changes its behavior as a result an event           In the cold northern ocean between Alaska and Russia, freezing weather is possible during any month of the year. Throughout the long winter, temperatures in the Arctic are so cold that the surface of the ocean freezes for millions of square miles! Remarkably, animals like the Pacific walrus are adapted to live in this chilly climate, and they use sea ice as part of their habitat. In recent summers, scientists and local residents have noticed less sea ice than normal in the Arctic. In September 2009, sea ice in the Chukchi Sea melted past the edge of the continental shelf. As a result, 3,500 walruses who usually rest in small groups on floating sea ice were forced to haul out together on land at Icy Cape. Something startled the walrus while they were resting there. When startled, walrus will leave their haulout and rush into the water. As the huge group of walrus at Icy Cape rushed to the water, younger and smaller animals were trampled. Alaska SeaLife Center scientists and veterinarians were on the team that was sent to Icy Cape after the stampede. They found more than 130 young walrus dead on the beach. This dramatic scene sparked their interest in studying walrus. Land-based haulouts in the Chukchi Sea were first seen in the United States less than ten years ago. A walrus's choice to haul out on land is directly linked to the availablity of sea ice. If ice is available within their range, they will haul out on it. If ice is not available, they will haul out on land. Scientists fear that, if we continue to have summers with less-than-normal sea ice, events like the stampede at Icy Cape will become more common. Scientists at the Alaska SeaLife Center want to understand how walrus use these new land haulouts. They also want to learn how walrus will respond to disturbances while they are on land. The challenge is that walrus live in isolated, wild areas spread across a huge region. To study walrus, scientists must find a way to observe them closely without causing any disturbance events themselves. How will the scientists do it? Join our team as they come up with a plan. To get started, let's learn more about the Icy Cape stampede by checking out the videos and news release below. You'll be amazed how crowded the walrus haulouts can get! VIDEO: Icy Cape Stampede 2009 When large numbers of walrus haul out together on land, a disturbance event can mean disaster. This video, including images from the 2009 Icy Cape stampede, examines what can happen when walrus haul out on land in large groups. (1 minute) Video Transcript Over the past few decades, sea ice in the Arctic has been shrinking at increasing rates. When the ice recedes past the continental shelf, walrus females and calves are forced to leave the ice and haul out on shore to stay near their feeding grounds. As you can see in this video taken near Point Lay in 2011, conditions on shore can get very crowded. If the walruses are disturbed, they may rush to the water in a massive stampede. In September 2009 scientists observed thousands of walruses hauling out together on land near Icy Cape on the shore of the Chukchi Sea. When researchers surveyed the area a few days later, they found over 130 walruses dead on the beach. Veterinarians and scientists from the Alaska SeaLife Center and other organizations investigated the event and determined that most of the fatalities were young animals that had died as a result of a stampede. Though the cause of this disturbance at Icy Cape is unknown, the number of fatalities can be attributed to the crowded conditions at the haul out.   Click here for more information on walrus haulout events in Alaska's North Slope Borough, including the 2009 Icy Cape event.   Now that we've observed the same event that sparked the interest of our Alaska SeaLife Center marine mammal research team, let's learn more about Pacific walrus and what they need to survive.      

animatedcollapse.addDiv('1', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() animatedcollapse.addDiv('2', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() Who is watching walrus? IMPACT (v) - to affect or change something else FORAGE (v) - to search for and collect food MIGRATE (of animal) (v)- to move seasonally from one area to another           Background Scientists know that when summer sea ice in the Arctic melts away from their shallow feeding grounds, Pacific walrus will haul out on land to stay near their food. The Icy Cape stampede showed scientists that land haulouts in the Chukchi Sea can be dangerous for young walrus. Scientists wonder how walrus populations will be impacted when the walrus have to use land haul outs more and more often. To understand how walrus populations might be affected by changes in their Arctic habitat, scientists first had to understand "normal" Pacific walrus behavior. Take a look at the videos and fact sheet below to explore what researchers already know about the mysterious Pacific walrus. VIDEO: The Pacific Walrus Understanding walruses' relationship with sea ice is important to understanding their behavior. (1 minute) Video Transcript Pacific walrus feed in relatively shallow water, hunting for small invertebrates on the ocean floor. In the Bering and Chukchi Seas, the continental shelf provides a vast area of shallow, rich feeding grounds for the walrus. Walrus haul out on sea ice or on land to rest between feeding trips. Although they are good swimmers, they don’t typically swim long distances, so they prefer to rest near where they eat. In the winter, arctic sea ice extends south into the Bering Sea, where large herds of male and female walrus spend the winter together. Then in the springtime, females and calves follow the melting sea ice north into the Chukchi Sea, while adult males separate from the rest of the population and migrate south to spend the summer in Bristol Bay. The male walruses in Bristol Bay typically haul out on land and feed near shore. In the Chukchi Sea, the females and calves spend their summer floating on the sea ice, drifting over the shallow continental shelf. In recent years, summer sea ice in the Arctic has melted beyond the edge of the continental shelf, leaving the females and calves without their traditional feeding and resting platforms.   WALRUS FACT SHEET (click to download .pdf) Female walrus and their calves use sea ice all year. They migrate to the Chukchi sea in summer because there is so much food available for them there. Watch the video below to hear Dr. Lori Polasek talk more about how females and calves may be affected if they can't haul out on sea ice and must move to areas on land, instead. VIDEO: Females and Calves Dr. Lori Polasek describes how females and calves might be impacted by hauling out on land instead of sea ice. (1.5 minutes) Video Transcript What are some of the possible impacts of females and calves hauling out on land instead of sea ice? There are several important facts about walrus that we had to understand before starting this project, and one of those is that land haulouts are primarily used by male walruses, of all ages, and ice is primarily used by females and calves. And the importance of ice, you can think of it as a mom and calf are floating around on a piece of ice and that keeps them moving across the water so it allows them to utilize different resources so they don’t impact a resource and completely deplenish [deplete] it. Also, by allowing them to float around, they’re not congregated together, where they’re more susceptible to predators, where then you allow the whole herd’s offspring to potentially be wiped out by a predator. It also takes your young, your offspring which are more susceptible to disease, and separates them from the population so that disease can’t spread as fast. So these new emerging haulouts with moms & calves packed together, then wipe out all of those protections of those calves by exposing them to disease as a group, by allowing them higher exposure to predators, and then by also having them together totally deplete resources in a localized area. Arctic sea ice extent is impacted by changes in seasonal and global climate. Walrus respond to changes in sea ice by migrating and adapting their behavior. Understanding how sea ice forms and why it melts can help scientists understand more specifically how walrus will be influenced. Check out the sea ice fact sheet below! SEA ICE FACT SHEET (click to download .pdf) This important background knowledge helped scientists from the Alaska SeaLife Center develop a research project studying walrus.      

animatedcollapse.addDiv('1', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() animatedcollapse.addDiv('2', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() Who is watching walrus? DEPLOY (v)- to set something up so that it is ready for action BLIND SPOT (n) - an area that cannot be seen because something is blocking your view DATA SET (n)- all of the information collected UPGRADE (v) - to improve the quality of something; to buy the next version of a product             Results   Cameras at the five sites captured data during the season of May-September 2011. For each of the sites, the timeline below shows (1) when the cameras were deployed, (2) when the first walrus was spotted at that location, (3) the date when the largest number of animals were counted on that site, and (4) the date of the last image taken by the cameras. The team collected census data by examining the photos at the end of the season and counting the walruses. Below are images captured from the haulout site on Cape Seniavin on August 4th, 2011. On this day, over 1,400 male walruses were counted hauled out in this single spot. Click on the thumbnail images below to see the larger versions: Researchers decided to add more cameras at this site in 2012 to avoid blind spots like the one created by the rock in the pictures above. On Hagemeister Island, cameras recorded the disturbance event seen below. Click on the thumbnail images below to see the larger versions: In the fourth photo you can see that these walrus quickly returned to the beach. The scientists couldn't see what caused the disturbance, but they think it was likely a bear or other land-based predator nearby. With clear images like the ones above, Dr. Polasek and her team agreed that camera monitoring at these remote sites is both possible and useful for understanding Pacific walrus behavior. Unfortunately, the type of camera the Alaska SeaLife Center team installed for the 2011 season tended to fail often. Many of the cameras stopped taking pictures before the last walrus left the site at the end of the season. So the 2011 data set isn't as complete as the team had hoped. They knew camera monitoring worked, but they needed to find a better type of camera. In 2011, the scientists were able to begin establishing their baseline. In 2012, they purchased new, more reliable cameras and added more haulout sites to their study. They're continuing to work on their baseline using male walrus in Bristol Bay, but with the help of the residents of Point Lay they've also set up their first cameras along the Chukchi Sea. Check the updates section for images captured in the second season!        

  animatedcollapse.addDiv('A', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() animatedcollapse.addDiv('B', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init()         A research vessel is a busy place! On a ship the size of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, several groups of scientists will be working on the boat at once, each with their own research project. Watch the video below to learn about what daily life was like as the research team collected samples for their sea ice project. VIDEO: A DAY IN THE LIFE Martin Schuster describes daily life working as a research technician on the sea ice project. (2:45) Video Transcript "My name is Martin. I've been a grad students at UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks) in the Masters program in Marine Biology for about four years now. "In the sea ice project working with Rolf my role was as technician, so I was basically organizing our gear before we would go out, and making sure all our sleds were loaded up with all the various paraphernalia that you need to go out and dirll holes in the sea ice and sample water. Our project was to get off the ice breaker on either a little ladder that they would lower down to the ice, or with a helicopter, which was the preferred way to do it. My job was basically to pack all the gear before we got out. To double, triple check and make sure that we had everything, because once you're twenty miles away from the ice breaker, if you forget something it's not a good thing. And then once we got onto the ice we would unpack everything. We would take some ice cores and then we would section the ice cores so that we could look at each individual strata in the sea ice later on and determine what kind of biota is living inside there. We'd also cut a larger hole in the sea ice so we could lower a device called a ctd. This thing would basically give us various water temperature and clorofil readings as it goes down into the water and then we'd pull it back up by hand. Most of the work was definitely getting things together and then cleaning up afterword. You have a pretty limited time on the ice and you want to get as much work done as you can. And then as soon as you're done it's time to go back to the ship because of polar bears." Text on screen "Wait a second.... POLAR BEARS" Martin: "It was a worry, I mean whenever we were on the ice directly from the ship we had what's called a bear guard. It was a Coast Guard person, fully dressed up in their survival suit with a rifle. And they would stand and watch us the whole time, just to make sure there were no bears around. So it was expected that we would see some bears, but sadly we did not. "We were just out during the day which was really neat because we got to see every sunrise and sunset, which on the sea ice is just spectacular. It was really, really cool. Just go, go go all the time. Whenever there's a chance to work, we were working. You get into sort of a motion after the first couple days, and time just starts to fly by. You really lose all sense of what day it is in the week, because it doesn't really matter. You have your work cut out for you that day, you know what you're going to do. You set all your stuff out, and you just do it. One day just begins to blend into the next. And it's actually better to be busy on a ship like that than it is to be idle, because you can get bored pretty easily. At the end of the busy day there's still work to be done. Back on the ship, the scientists have to download data to their computers and store samples for later analysis. Finally, they repack the gear for another day on the ice. On the USCGC Healy, every day is a work day. The team will continue this routine each day for several weeks! The team is excited to begin piecing together the food web, but analysis will have to wait until later, back in the lab in Fairbanks.       WHO IS STUDYING SEA ICE?   BIOTA (n)- the animal or plant life in an area   CHLOROPHYLL (n)- a green pigment found in plants and algae    

  animatedcollapse.addDiv('1', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() animatedcollapse.addDiv('2', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init()         At the northern fringe of the Pacific Ocean, along the United States’ most remote boundary, lies the Bering Sea.  Covering an area more than three times the size of Texas (nearly 900,000 sq. mi.), and supporting some of the most valuable fisheries in the world, the Bering Sea’s remote waters have attracted explorers for thousands of years.  This cold maritime environment is home to a huge diversity of life. From migrating whales to clams, seabirds, seals and fish, organisms in the Bering Sea have evolved to make up one of the world’s most unique ecosystems.  The Bering Sea’s high northern latitude means nearly continuous daylight throughout the summer months.  In contrast, the winters are long and dark. Winter conditions are so harsh that the surface of the ocean, over much of the Bering Sea, freezes.  Organisms living in this region have had to adapt to these challenging, extreme, and changeable polar conditions. VIDEO: INTRODUCTION TO THE BERING SEA Discover why the Bering Sea is important to people in Alaska and around the world (1:50) Video Transcript Despite its remoteness, the coastline of the Bering Sea is home to many Alaskans. There are no roads connecting these remote communities to Alaska’s larger cities, so people living along the coast rely on the ocean to sustain their way of life. Subsistence hunting and fishing of marine animals has traditionally been an important source of food, material for clothing, fuel and culture for many people living in these villages. Successful harvest of these marine resources requires an understanding of the Bering Sea ecosystem including the ability to predict how weather and species distribution vary throughout the year. However, it isn’t only people who live beside the Bering Sea who are affected by it. Even if you’ve never heard of the Bering Sea, chances are it’s had an impact on your life. If you’ve ever eaten fish sticks or tried ‘artificial’ crab meat, you were probably eating Pollock. Pollock is a species of cod that live in the Bering Sea. These fish make up the largest single species fishery in the United States. On average two billion pounds of Pollock are harvested in Alaska every year (that’s equal to about 100 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower in Paris). The Pollock fishery in Alaska is worth about three hundred million dollars a year, making it an important part of our state and national economy. So whether you live beside Alaska’s coast, or thousands of miles from it, the Bering Sea is worth caring about. It’s home to unique animals and dynamic people. It provides American jobs and is a source of food, insight and inspiration. Recently, people living in coastal areas, companies exploring and building along the coast, and researchers with an eye on the Bering Sea have observed significant and measureable changes. Sea ice has been arriving later in the winter.  Animals are migrating farther north and the distribution of species is changing.  Some animal populations are growing quickly, while others seem to be in decline. These changes directly impact everyone who relies on the Bering Sea.  They make it harder for local communities to support their food and infrastructure needs, and harder for companies to plan on the expected ice or weather conditions two years down the road.   VIDEO: ARCTIC MELT IN ACTION This NOAA visualization illustrates how sea ice cover in the Arctic changes annually across the seasons. Compare 2012's record melt season to the historic (1979-2000) median. (0:34) Changes in the Bering Sea won’t just affect people and their activities; they may also impact the balance of the marine ecosystem. This has scientists concerned. They realize that before we can make predictions about what these changes may mean for this important marine ecosystem, we need to learn more about the area as it is now. Dr. Rolf Gradinger and his colleagues at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are one group of researchers working to better understand the Bering Sea. Observations they've made have sparked scientific questions and inspired futher research about the Bering Sea food web.  VIDEO: INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROJECT Dr. Rolf Gradinger explains why the team is interested in studying the Bering Sea ecosystem. (1:30) Video Transcript "My name is Rolf Gradinger. I'm a faculty member at the School of Fisheries and Oceans Sciences (at UAF). I have a research interest in Arctic Ecology and I've been doing this now for quite a while. "Since 2008 I worked in the Bering Sea in spring. The Bering Sea is very unique, it's a unique ocean because it's part of the Arctic system. The Bering Ecosystem is very rich in a lot of marine resources, there are lots of fish living in the Bering Sea like Pollock, and most of the US fisheries are actually happening in the Bering Sea. In addition to that you will find lots of marine mammals and seabirds in the Bering Sea. And a lot of people living in that region, like native populations on Saint Lawrence Island or on the Alaskan coastline rely on marine resources. "Now the big question is, which you might have heard, that ice conditions in the Arctic are changing. Summer sea ice is disappearing, ice melts happen much sooner, so there is a tremendous change in the Arctic. "The question is, what does it all mean to the ecosystem if ice conditions change? For really addressing that question you need to know what lives with the ice. You know about the Polar bears and the seals living on the ice, but there's actually little critters that live within the ice, and they grow within the ice, and they only exist within the ice. Our part was to learn as much as possible about the spring biology, in association with ice in the Bering Sea." Dr. Rolf Gradinger and his team know that among the many species of plant and animal life living with the sea ice are marine plants called algae. The team wants to better understand the role that this sea ice algae plays in the entire Bering Sea food web during the spring. Dr. Gradinger knows that to accurately hypothesize the importance of this algae bloom, the researchers will need to study the science of sea ice as well as discover what types of living things make their homes throughout the sea ice ecosystem.        WHO IS STUDYING SEA ICE?   FISHERY (n)- an area where fish are caught   MIGRATE (v)- to move seasonally from one area to another   ORGANISM (n)- an individual life form   ECOSYSTEM (n)- a community of interacting living organisms and their physical environment   LATITUDE (n)- a measure of the distance north or south of the equator, expressed in degrees   SUBSISTENCE (n)- a style of living where a person relies on the local environment for survival   DISTRIBUTION (n)- the way something is spread over an area   ALGAE (n)- any aquatic plant or plant-like organism (seaweed)    

animatedcollapse.addDiv('A', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init() animatedcollapse.addDiv('B', 'fade=1') animatedcollapse.ontoggle=function($, divobj, state){ //fires each time a DIV is expanded/contracted //$: Access to jQuery //divobj: DOM reference to DIV being expanded/ collapsed. Use "divobj.id" to get its ID //state: "block" or "none", depending on state } animatedcollapse.init()         At the Alaska SeaLife Center, Dr. Hollmen's team provides all the necessary care for the Steller's eiders in their virtual habitat. The eider team monitors the birds’ behaviors and health on a daily basis and makes sure the birds have the proper space and food. The enclosures for the birds aren’t exactly like the habitats they typically live in, so it is up to the husbandry team to figure out what the Steller’s eiders need to succeed. Dr. Tuula Hollmen and her crew work hard to create a habitat that suits the eiders. Remember, Steller’s eiders are migratory birds, so the habitat at the Alaska SeaLife Center has to change season to season, especially during breeding season! VIDEO: Creating a Virtual Habitat Tasha DiMarzio explains how the Steller's eider enclosures at the Alaska SeaLife Center can be altered to create a virtual tundra habitat. (2:19) Video Transcript The area we are sitting in now we call our breeding units. There’s ten individual units or one large unit, and we can create smaller flocks or individual breeding units or one big pen for if we want to winter everybody in this unit, we can do that. Starting in January through March, we’ll really start watching the birds and seeing who is courting with who and who’s pairing off, and then we’ll move them from what we call the non-breeding or wintering unit and they migrate over to our breeding units (which is just across the walkway). In the winter time we switch them all to salt water because that is where they would be in the wild, out in the ocean, and in the summertime they come to these freshwater tundra ponds. When we were in full breeding season we had covers over one of the pools and it was tundra and then pond on the other side. But now since we are in duck rearing mode we have two ponds and they’re both fresh water. Getting birds to breed in captivity is always a big challenge. Luckily we are in a state where these birds are actually from, and so we can go out and see what they are using as nest materials and what sites they prefer, if its grass or lichen, and then we try and replicate that the best we can. We don’t have these big vast tundra fields, so we try and create areas that they can feel secluded and have privacy, but then have it look a little bit like what maybe they would see in the wild. We go to the beach and we collect a lot of driftwood to create visual barriers and blinds and areas that they can be private. Because each female is picky about where she likes, we try and provide each pair with at least three different nesting options. So a nesting option can be a manmade wooden structure that looks like nothing that you would see in the wild, and then another open tundra-like moss nest, and then a combination of the two: maybe driftwood around a plexiglass-covered structure. And then the biggest key is just keeping it dry so that the down in the nests stay dry. Because the areas that they are nesting, even though it is Arctic tundra, it’s actually a desert and so there is very little water and rainfall but here we’re in a very rainy climate and so that’s a big challenge we have, is keeping their nests dry while they’re going through the egg laying process, so we come up with different things to try and tackle that challenge. By altering the virtual habitat, the husbandry staff can try to match the eiders’ needs for the breeding season. Each year, the husbandry team continues to offer the eiders a variety of space and nesting configurations in the habitat, in an attempt to promote successful breeding. If something doesn’t work, they try something different the next year! After years of trial and error, favorable conditions have been created, allowing some of the eiders to feel comfortable enough to nest! As a result, the team is faced with hundreds of eggs. Some of the Steller’s eider hens incubate their own eggs, but many eggs end up in the care of the husbandry staff when hens don't prepare an appropriate nest. See how scientists can try to play the role of a hen incubating her eggs. VIDEO: ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION Nathan Bawtinhimer describes the process involved when humans incubate eider eggs. (1:32) Video Transcript It's a fun challenge trying to get the artificial incubators to accurately mimic the hen incubating which is very tricky. So we’ve been messing around with a lot of different humidity settings and different methods of turning to more accurately imitate the hen and promote better development within the egg during the incubation process and successful hatching. It’s important that we candle the eggs regularly so we can keep track of the development inside the egg. By candling them with a bright LED flashlight we can actually see inside the egg and just by looking we can tell how long it’s been incubating for, if it’s on the right track developmentally, and what the estimated hatch should be. When we are candling the eggs it is actually an important cool down time for the eggs, because we’ll have the top off the incubator which simulates the hen getting off the nest and foraging. And we also weigh the eggs everyday because during the course of incubation there is a certain range that the egg is supposed to lose to hatch successfully, usually between 12 and 16% of its weight. So we watch their weight loss and we adjust the humidity accordingly. The amount of weight they lose is critical for successful hatching. We’ll record and enter all the data in the spreadsheet so we can track the weight loss and the development of the eggs. And we keep very detailed records of everything we see every day when we candle. While scientists are learning about the Steller's eiders at the Alaska SeaLife Center, they also need to learn more about the natural habitat of these birds. If researchers are hoping to increase the nesting population of Steller's eiders in Alaska, there has to be suitable nesting habitat available in the wild. To determine what is available for these birds in the wild, the scientists head out into the field...       CLICK BELOW TO LEARN ABOUT SEADUCK SCIENTISTS!   COURTSHIP (n)- the behavior of male birds and other animals aimed at attracting a mate.   HABITAT (n)- the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism.   HUSBANDRY (n)- the care, cultivation, and breeding of crops or animals.   INCUBATE (v)- to keep an egg or organism at an appropriate temperature for it to develop.   MIMIC (v)- to imitate something.   MONITOR (v)- to keep surveillance over something.    

Giving Circle Levels and Benefits The Alaska SeaLife Center relies on a combination of grants, donations, and admission sales to operate at a world-class level. Donors like you support Alaska's marine wildlife by helping to fund research, education, and wildlife response programs. We invite you to join a Giving Circle at a level best suited to you. The SeaLife Circle begins at the $300 donation level and the Steller Circle begins at the $1,000 donation level. SeaLife Circle Level SeaLife Associate SeaLife Advocate Cost $300-$499 $500-$999 Family membership including 2 named adults and named dependent children/grandchildren ages 17 and under* Discounts for guests, tours, and gift shop Recognition on the donor board at the Center Invitation to an annual virtual CEO update   Guest Passes 4 8 *Adults and dependent children/grandchildren must be in the same household. Steller Circle Level Steller Partner Steller Guardian Steller Patron Steller Champion Cost $1,000-$2,499 $2,500-$4,999 $5,000-$9,999 $10,000+ Family membership including 2 named adults and named dependent children/grandchildren ages 17 and under* Discounts for guests, tours, café, and gift shop Recognition on the donor board at the Center Invitation to an annual virtual CEO update Guest Passes 8 8 8 8 VIP Tour  For 4 For 4 For 8 For 8 Invitation to quarterly VIP virtual programs   Keeper for a Day, a 5-hour program for one or two people with minimum age of 16       *Adults and dependent children/grandchildren must be in the same household. Please contact the Development Office at development@alaskasealife.org or call Laura Swihart, Development Associate, 907-224-6337, if you have any questions about joining a Giving Circle.