Four students from the Pribilof Islands will be traveling to Anchorage in January to present a poster on the Seabird Youth Network at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium. 
Interested students completed a competition to attend the conference. There were many great entries, and it was a hard choice for judge Jordan Watson.
Many thanks to all the students for their insightful entries, and CONGRATULATIONS to the four finalists: Sonia Merculief, Carley Bourdukofsky, Destiny Kushin, and Carmen Philemonoff.
Each student was asked what they would share about the Pribilof ecosystem and community with folk in Anchorage. Here is Carmen’s response:
“I live on St. George Island, which is located in the middle of the Bering Sea with about 60 people living here. St. George has a very high population of sea birds that migrate here during the summer. In the summer it is amazing to see millions of Least Auklets fly in huge groups above the town. When you’re near the cliffs you hear a variety of birds making loud noises, especially the Murres that sound as if they’re laughing. A lot of the sea birds that migrate here nest on the cliffs. The birds that first migrate here come in the middle of April nest in a colony under rocks and on the biggest hill on the island called Ulakayax. Every day you see them fly in groups of thousands from their colony to the ocean to get their food.
In July of 2008 the rare Golden V Kelp, also known by its Latin name Aureophycus Aleuticus, was discovered on St.George Island. Dr. Hiroshi Kawaii, who was doing a scuba diving routine, was the first to discover Aureophycus Aleuticus. That same summer I attended the St.George Marine Science Camp that was held in a building out of town. St. Paul (our neighboring island) had students attended the camp as well. We spent about two weeks studying marine life, and mainly focusing on the newly discovered Golden V Kelp. We studied and took measurements of it everyday and wrote down our observations and information in a field notebook. The discovery was huge news because there are only two islands in the whole world that we know of that have this type of kelp. When Golden V was first founded, it was only thought to be in one area of the island, but now it very abundant. It almost covers the whole perimeter of the island.
A lot of people, especially the fisherman, rely on fishing season. Fishing season starts the beginning of July, to early September. The fisherman work very hard to catch a lot of halibut and make a lot of money during these short two months. People also depend on fishing season to stock up their freezers with halibut for the winter.
Living in St.George has its challenges. We greatly depend on planes, but they are often canceled do to weather. In the summer a lot of fog rolls in from our high cliffs and hills, so a lot of the time we have 0-0 visibility. In the winter there are a lot of snowstorms which means the roads get blocked.
St. George is a very unique island with many birds, beautiful sceneries and breath taking views. “