Invasive Species
Least Auklet and Rat (above) © Ian Jones What is an invasive species? An introduced species, also called an alien or exotic species, is any species [...]
Seabird Migration
We hear that Miss. Kushin’s class is learning about migration this week: butterflies; mammals, birds… Don’t forget about Seabirds! Seabirds return to land to build nests, lay [...]
Cold Feet?
Miron, a student on St. Paul Island, asks, “Why don’t kittiwakes get frostbite on their feet if their legs and feet are in the cold water all [...]
Red-legged Kittiwake Ecology
Red-legged kittiwake photo (above) by Caitlin Kroeger There are two species of kittiwake, the black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) and the red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris). The red-legged kittiwake is [...]
Meet the Team
Instead of working independently and alone, it is more and more common for a group of scientists to work together to figure out answers to a question [...]
Red-legged Kittiwake Behavior
The Pribilof Islands are an important site for many seabird species, including 70% of the world’s red-legged kittiwake population. The Refuge’s annual seabird monitoring program provides essential information [...]
Bering Sea Days 2014
Veronica Padula (University of Alaska, Anchorage) recently traveled to St. Paul to teach students about seabirds and marine pollution during Bering Sea Days (above photo shows students learning [...]
Yellow-billed Loons
The Colville River Teen Video Crew (left to right): Sam Bernitz (Anchorage), Sam Tocktoo (Shishmaref), and Andrew Kennedy (Fairbanks). The trio wrapped up filming yellow-billed loons last week [...]
Plastic Pellet Experiment
Students attending Seabird Camp set-up a plastic pellet experiment. Trevor Haynes explains more… University of Alaska Scientist Veronica Padula had a challenge for the seabird camp students [...]
No Seabird Camp on St. George This Year
No Seabird Camp on St. George this year, but the kids have still been busy. The least auklet nest boxes that were made and installed during camp [...]
After Seabird Camp
Work on St. Paul continued for a few days after Seabird Camp. Our intern, Diamond, joined USFWS crew to capture Least Auklets and collect the food they [...]
A big day on St. Paul Island.
Garbie was safely installed in her new home in the lobby of the Tribal Office. Here she is getting her photo taken with Paul and Dallas from [...]
Meet Garbie!
Garbie the trash bird was completed today and is looking for a (large) burrow to call home. She already has many friends! Here she is posing with [...]
Day After Camp
Camp is officially over, but work continues on t-shirts and finishing the fishing line recycling containers (made from recycled Folger coffee cans).
Seabird Camp Day 5
The final official day of Seabird Camp 2014. We started the day with a conference call with Sean Russell of the “Stow-It-Don’t –Throw-It” project. It was good [...]
Seabird Camp Day 4
Another busy day at Seabird Camp! The campers finished painting their bright blue or green murre eggs to start camp today. We will use them for games [...]
Day 3 of Seabird Camp
Here is a blog entry written by our student intern, Diamond, about her trip to the cliffs with Refuge biologists and the third day of Seabird Camp. [...]
Day 2 of Seabird Camp
After doing some research, Campers were surprised to find out how long waste items take to biodegrade. We took in the “Stow-It-Don’t-Throw-It” program’s presentation on marine debris, [...]
First day of Seabird Camp
We had a very busy, active and messy first day in Seabird Camp! During “Bird Beak Buffet” students learned which “beaks” work best for which food items. [...]
St. Paul Island 4th July Movie
Trevor Haynes put together this fun movie about the 4th July celebrations, with some great footage of the Seabird Float in action!
Champion Puffin!
The St. Paul Mini-Marathon is an annual event put on by the City of St. Paul as part of the 4th of July celebration. It starts at [...]
4th July on St. Paul!
Wow, what a 4th of July! (Or June-July as they say here.) We started with a (rather wet) parade, and continued with games on the ball-field. Both [...]
PARTY PREPARATIONS
The Camp Team has been busy making super cool seabird masks for the 4th July parade! I wouldn't want to mess with these puffins!
KIDS DON’T FLOAT
Ram and Trevor have made safely to St. Paul, and everyone is busy preparing for Seabird Camp. On their first day, they attended a "Kids Don't Float" [...]
How many birds?
It’s a POPULATION COUNT YEAR on the Pribilof Islands. What is a “Population Count Year”? The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (AMNWR) counts the number of seabirds [...]
Marine Debris
“Ophelia” octopus created out of marine debris by Kodiak High School students. One of the main focuses for the 2014 summer Seabird Camp on St. Paul Island is [...]
Don’t Throw it!
“Stow it-don’t throw it” is a youth debris and ocean conservation program dedicated to protect marine environments. As part of this cool project, youth make recycling bins [...]
Pribilof Debris
Is there marine debris on the Pribilof Islands? [separator type='transparent' color='' thickness='1' up='' down=''] YES! The main risks of marine debris on the Pribilof Islands are the [...]
FOOD STRESS
We took blood samples from least auklets caught during Seabird Summer Camp last year. These blood samples were spun (using a centrifuge) to separate the plasma from [...]
DIET DATA
The Least Auklet diet sample analysis has been completed by Chris Stark, and we now have the results in the form of data. WHAT DO THE DATA [...]
DIET ANALYSIS
Remember? …. We collected Least Auklet chick diet samples http://www.seabirdyouth.org/what-do-auklets-eat/ for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife. http://www.fws.gov/alaska/nwr/akmar/ during last summer’s Seabird Camps. QUICK RECAP: Why did we [...]
Symposium Day 4
By Destiny Kushin and Carley Bourdukofsky We spent the morning visiting Veronica Padula and Doug Causey in their lab at the University of Alaska (UAA). At the lab, [...]
Symposium Day 3
We spent the morning at the Anchorage museum imaginarium. Our favorite things were the bubble-makers and learning how hot air balloons work. After lunch we went back [...]
Symposium Day 2
By Carley Bourdukofsky On January 21, 2014, we went to the Campbell Creek Science Center and learned about moose, foxes, chickadees, owls, beavers, etc. After learning about [...]
Symposium Day 1
By Carmen PhilemonoffThe first thing we did Monday morning was get up at 7:00 a.m and eat breakfast. After we ate breakfast Ann Harding met us in [...]
Alaska Marine Science Symposium
After two cancelled plane trips due to bad weather, Tonia Kushin and the four students (Sonia Merculief, Carley Bourdukofsky, Destiny Kushin, and Carmen Philemonoff) made it off [...]
St. Paul Students
Four students were chosen to present their poster at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in January. Each student was asked what they would share about their home [...]
Four Students
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 [...]
Bering Sea Days
Bering Sea Days is an annual program developed by the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government and the school at St. Paul. The week is [...]
Distance Dissection
Veronica Padula is a graduate student at UAA (University of Alaska, Anchorage), studying how plastic pollution affects seabirds in Alaska. Veronica has SKYPED with Pribilof students a couple times [...]
Conference competition
The Alaska Marine Science Symposium is taking place in Anchorage, in January 2013. We have funding from the North Pacific Research Board for four students to attend [...]
Abstracts
A scientific abstract summarizes research papers in a way that helps other researchers decide whether the study would be interesting or helpful to their own work. Abstracts [...]
MELTDOWN
The Alaska Sealife Center has a new virtual field trip to learn about sea ice the Bering Sea. Check it out.
Day Four
St. Paul: The group started the day by studying Tonia’s insect collection, then Ram gave a slideshow on currently blooming wildflowers. Students worked on plant ID worksheets [...]
Day Five
Last Day of Camp. THANK YOU everyone who has made this week happen. It's been an amazing team effort and alot of fun. St. Paul- Today we finished [...]
Day Three
St. George- Today we have been busy bees working on our movie (the very little kids had the day off camp). We edited and recorded this morning to [...]
Day Two
Camp at St. Paul started with a warm-up game of Kittiwake-Sandlance that showed how hard it is for seabirds to find enough food to feed their chicks.The [...]
St George camp
Photos from our first couple of days at St George Seabird Camp 2013! Many thanks to Shinya Hosokawa for his beautiful photos.