Alison Banks, Northern fur seals seasonal movements and foraging strategies: consequences to females and their pups  

Alison is currently a graduate student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.  Her academic interests primarily involve pinniped foraging ecology and reproductive physiology. Alison completed undergraduate work at the University of California Santa Cruz where she worked on a project investigating the foraging ecology of Antarctic fur seals.  She has been in Alaska since 2001 where she has had the opportunity to collaborate with researchers studying Steller sea lion critical habitats, intertidal communities in Prince William Sound and seabird foraging ecology and reproductive success on the Pribilof Islands. Alison is currently completing her PhD work which examines northern fur seal foraging strategies and reproductive physiology.  She lives in Fairbanks and spends summers working in the field and exploring Alaska.  

Alison's favorite remote location in Alaska is Bogoslof Island, where she conducted field work during the summers of 2005 and 2006.  Her favorite kayaking and camping area is Prince William Sound, but she still has so many places to see and explore.  For instance, she would love to kayak around the islands and fjords of Southeast Alaska.  

John Bockstoce

Mike Castellini, Ph.D.

Mike received his PhD in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1981.  He has been a faculty member at the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 1989, Science Director for the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward, Alaska 1995-1999, Director of the Institute of Marine Science at UAF from 2002-2005 and is currently the Associate Dean for the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.  Mikes research focuses on how marine mammals have adapted to life in the sea. Ever since his graduate work in San Diego, he has studied marine mammals around the world examining their biochemical, physiological and behavioral adaptations for deep and long duration diving, extended fasting, exercise physiology, hydrodynamics and even sleeping patterns. In Alaska, his work has extended into issues of population health (why are marine mammal populations declining in some areas?), contaminant chemistry, reproductive chemistry and digestive physiology. Mikes graduate students work from Alaska to Antarctica on these issues. He as written over 75 scientific papers on his work and is involved in local, state and National panels and committees dealing with policy issues related to marine mammals, ecosystem management and agency oversights.

Dan Crocker, Ph.D.  Foraging Ecology of northern elephant seals: physiology, energetics, and behavior.

Dan is currently a Professor of Biology at Sonoma State University in California.  He received a BS in Applied biology from Georgia Tech, a MS in Marine Sciences from University of California Santa Cruz and a PhD in Biology from University of California Santa Cruz. Dan's research is focused on the physiological and behavioral ecology of pinnipeds, seals and sea lions. His approach is to integrate physiology and behavior with the aim of addressing ecological theory. He is investigating physiological factors that impact the reproductive and foraging strategies used by marine predators. Much of his current research is focused on the physiology and behavior of northern elephant seals.

Dan's wife, Tere, is an equine veterinarian.  His favorite place is Denali, Alaska, where he and Tere spent their honeymoon.  They have an 8 year old daughter, Cassidy, who wants to be an artist and marine biologist when she grows up.

Carey Kuhn, Ph.D.

Female fur seals and sea lions are faced with the challenges of balancing time on land nursing a pup with time at-sea obtaining resources. While females make short foraging trips to refuel, pups wait on shore fasting until mom returns. In order to maintain this balance, females have a limited amount of time to travel to foraging grounds and locate prey. Carey will discuss how different fur seal and sea lion species (with emphasis on northern fur seals) alter their behavior at sea to respond to environmental variation. She hopes to also discuss the potential impacts of these changes in behavioral movement patterns on both raising a pup and population growth.

Carey is a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow working with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) in Seattle, Washington. She was raised in Arizona and received her BS in Zoology from Arizona State University in 1997. After a brief time working as a biological technician for the National Park Service in New York, she began working towards a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Carey began studying pinnipeds (sea lions, fur seals, and true seals) in 1999 and received her Ph.D. in 2006 for her research examining the at-sea behavior of two locally abundant species, the northern elephant seal and California sea lion. During this time she also collaborated with researchers examining the at-sea behavior and physiology of a variety of other species including crabeater seals, leopard seal, and Australian fur seals and sea lions. Currently, Carey is working with the Alaska Ecosystems group at NMML to examine the summer foraging behavior of female northern fur seals.  Her area of expertise is foraging behavior of seals, sea lions, and fur seals.

Bruce Mate

Craig Matkin,  Interception and predation on migrating gray whales by aggregations of killer whales in Western Alaska: The risk of predictable migratory pathways.

Eastern North Pacific gray whales make an extensive migration from Baja California to the Bering and Chukchi Sea each spring.  Although they have made a dramatic recovery from severe depletion, and have been removed from the endangered species list, they face considerable challenges with the possibility of dwindling food supplies and from predation by killer whales.  There are two known regions where killer whales annually intercept the migratory gray whales.  The first is in Monterey Bay California and the second at the end of the Alaska Peninsula as the migrants head into the Bering Sea.  During our research on killer whales in the Eastern Aleutians five years ago, we discovered that at least 70 killer whales annually move into the waters near False Pass and Unimak Island to intercept young gray whales.  They often kill them in shallow waters, where they may feed on the carcass for days.  We are just beginning to understand the importance of gray whales to killer whales in this region and the significance of predation on the gray whale population.  The predictable timing and migration pattern makes gray whales particularly susceptible to ambush by small groups of killer whales.

Craig is an independent researcher and executive director of the research and education non-profit, North Gulf Oceanic Society. He works with National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Alaska Sea Life Center, North Pacific Marine Mammal Research Consortium, and Exxon Valdez oil spill Trustee Council. Craig has researched Alaskan killer whales and humpback whales for 25 years. He was a student of Ken Norris’s at University of California Santa Cruz and a graduate student at University of Alaska Fairbanks under Bud Fay. Craig was also a long time commercial fisherman and he currently lives in Homer, Alaska.  His area of expertise is cetacean biology, including killer whale ecology and behavior and long term studies of killer and humpback whales.

Craig's favorite place in Alaska is the center of his longest running research project and his spiritual home, Prince William Sound, where he has researched, fished and at times lived since 1975. He has watched the same killer whales (and humpback whales) in this area that were born, matured, and produced young during the course of the study. And of course he has watched some of them die...a number as a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Craig says, "I am strongly connected to the place and the animals."

Background Reading:  Ecotypic variation of predatory behavior among killer whales (Orcinus orca) off the eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska and Ongoing population-level impacts on killer whales Orcinus orca following the ‘Exxon Valdez’ oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska

Scott Shaffer, Ph.D.  Have wings will travel: Around the Pacific Ocean with migrating Sooty Shearwaters

Born and raised in San Diego, California, Scott obtained a B.Sc. in Biology at San Diego State University. In 1993, he and his wife moved to the San Francisco Bay area where Scott enrolled in the graduate program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He eventually earned a M.Sc. in Marine Science (1996) and Ph.D. in Biology (2000) from UCSC. Scott is currently an Assistant Professor at California State University, San Bernardino. He studies the foraging ecology and energetics of seabirds for the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) program. Scott’s research has taken him to Alaska, Svalbard (Norway), the French Antarctic Territories, Antarctic Peninsula, New Zealand, Mexico, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and Palmyra Atoll. Although most of Scott’s research has been conducted on albatrosses and petrels, more recently he has begun studying boobies and gulls. One of his fondest memories of fieldwork was studying pigeon guillemots for the US Fish and Wildlife Service while stationed at Naked Island, Prince William Sound, Alaska (summer 1997). "Prince William Sound is one of the most amazing places I have ever been to. The Chugach Mountain Range is a spectacular backdrop along the Sound."  His area of expertise is the ecology and physiology of seabirds and marine mammals using electronic tags to study movement, distribution, and behavior of individuals as well as various methods to measure energy expenditure and effort in free-ranging animals.  Scott has a daughter and son, whom he hopes one of which will follow in his footsteps (or play Major League Baseball).

Background Reading:  Migratory shearwaters Integrate oceanic resources across the pacific Ocean in an endless summer

Robert Suydam