the BREAKWATER 
A newsletter from the Prince William Sound Science Center
September 15, 2020
Upcoming in Education
A still from Nicole's video "Draw a Shorebird with PWSSC." Check it out!
The months ahead are shaping up to look quite different than a "normal" fall for PWSSC's education team, but that won't keep us from educating! 

The Little Dippers are started sessions on September 14th (given that our community Health Alert Level allows for a safe reopening). This outdoor nature group for pre-school aged kids emphasizes nature, exploration, outdoor skills, teamwork, and art.

Our education team will also be teaching a new class for the Cordova Jr./Sr. High School. Led by AmeriCorps member, Nicole Webster, four high school students will embark on a journey into Nature Journaling and Scientific Art. This class will mostly be held outside, allowing our beautiful surroundings to inspire art through all mediums from pen and ink to photography. This class, too, will follow the school and community protocols for safe operation. 

We are so excited to get outside for amazing adventures with eager learners! 
New Researcher Joins PWSSC Staff
Alysha Cypher, Ph.D. is a fish physiologist and ecotoxicologist who came to the PWSSC after a National Research Council postdoc at the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center. Her research focuses on how environmental perturbations like pollution and climate change alter fish physiology at multiple life stages. She is interested in how impacts at the individual level influence population dynamics and interspecific interactions and how this data can be used to prioritize sensitive species for fisheries management. She started her postdoctoral research position with the PWSSC and joined the Herring Research and Monitoring team in 2020.
Research Roundup
Pink Salmon. Photo by Dr. Pete Rand
Despite travel restrictions, physical distancing, and logistical hurdles, we've had an incredibly busy summer full of field work! 

In the world of fish:
Aerial and acoustic surveys for herring in Prince William Sound kicked off the field season with both survey methods noting a higher abundance than previous years. 
Dr. Rob Campbell's Lower Copper River Sonar was deployed to count salmon passage on the Copper River, marking the fifth year of this project. 

The Sockeye Salmon Migration study in the Copper River continued this year with Dr. Pete Rand, Dr. Kristen Gorman, and team tagging ~280 adult Copper River sockeye. This project team is still in the field collecting pre-spawning adults from the upper Copper River. 

The Hatchery-Wild Salmon Interactions study is in what is scheduled to be the final year of PWS data collection with the crew still out in the field. 

A team from the University of South Alabama came to resample the bottom fish community on the mudflats of the western Copper River Delta with Dr. Mary Anne Bishop and our recent addition to PWSSC, Dr. Alysha Cypher.

In the bird-world:
Dr. Kristen Gorman and Anne Schaefer had a very successful trip to Middleton Island for the third year of the Resolving the Annual Pelagic Distribution of Tufted Puffins project.

Dr. Mary Anne Bishop, Anne Schaefer, and Kirsti Jurica completed gull captures, collected gull eggs, and sampled fecal droppings of migrating shorebirds and residential gulls to understand how avian influenza moves among bird populations. 

The same team also conducted nest searches to band and resight previously-banded Semipalmated Plovers at Egg Island. 

Oceanographically speaking:
Research Assistant Caitlin McKinstry made headlines this summer explaining a local phenomenon while also continuing her work with Dr. Rob Campbell on the Long-term Monitoring of Oceanographic Conditions in Prince William Sound.

It was certainly a busy and productive field season for our science team and this doesn't even touch on all the lab work, data-wrangling, and publication or proposal writing they were also working on. We think they're pretty impressive. 
PWSSC Welcomes New Board Member: Chris Rurik
Chris Rurik is a writer and naturalist who lives on a farm near Tacoma, Washington. He is particularly interested in history and landscapes and serves on the board of The Russell Family Foundation, an environmental funder in Puget Sound. 

You can find him birding, biking, or reading with his wife and young son. He is thrilled to be joining the PWSSC board and keeping a close connection with Alaskan people and landscapes.
The Science Center is committed to understanding how one place on earth can maintain a reliable economy and natural environment for the long term. 
 
The postponement of our annual gala puts us in a tight spot and we need your help now more than ever. If you believe in our mission and care about what we do, please consider making a donation today. Every dollar helps us stay stable during these uncertain times.
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