The Alaska Ecosystems Program focused on preparation and presentation of research findings during the winter quarter and planning future work. Program staff presented work at the 16th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals held in San Diego 12-17 December on topics including environmental composition of habitat used by juvenile Steller sea lions, the use of remotely-sensed satellite and sea glider measurements to characterize northern fur seal habitat, and use of isotope ratios in teeth as a method of identifying age-specific patterns in weaning of Steller sea lions. Program staff also presented papers at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium held in Anchorage in 23-25 January.
On 4 February staff provided updates on Steller sea lion population status, vital rates, and research programs to the Alaska Sea Otter and Steller Sea Lion Commission, at their annual meeting held in Anchorage, and again at the Forum for the Environment meeting also in Anchorage on 6 February. The 13th Ocean Sciences Meeting, a joint meeting of American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, Estuarine Research Federation, The Oceanography Society and American Geophysical Union was held 20-24 February at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu. Jeremy Sterling was invited to give a presentation entitled, "Enlisting the Northern fur Seal (Callorhinus ursinus) as an Oceanographic Probe."
The talk focused on using the northern fur seal to direct biological and physical sampling. Several examples of fur seals foraging around interesting oceanographic features were discussed along with two examples of using autonomous underwater vehicles (sea gliders) to sample areas where fur seals were foraging. The abstract of this talk can be found at http://www.agu.org/meetings/os06/?content=program.
Program members attended the final meeting of the Steller Sea Lion Recovery Team 15-17 March in Seattle and assisted in completing the Team's Recovery Plan which was submitted to NMFS on 31 March.
The upcoming field season is fast approaching and will include sea lion resighting work in the eastern Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska, as well as sea lion pup measurements and aerial surveys throughout the Aleutian Islands.
