Category: Meetings

Join us and learn more about refuges and wildlife at our meetings held from 5-6 pm AKT, the 3rd Tuesday of the month. from fall to spring. All of our meetings are available on zoom with the link posted below, in watch parties or with live speaker at a refuge headquarters, and in recordings posted to this page. You do not need to be a member to attend.

Upcoming Schedule:

April 16: Gravel to Gravel Initiative: Saving Pacific Salmon from the river deltas of Norton Sound and the Bering Sea to the headwater streams in Canada with program director Boyd Blihovde; live at the BP Center in Anchorage plus zoom.

Meetings are on pause through the summer.

September 17: Researching the Porcupine caribou herd with Arctic Refuge biologist Willliam Leacock and USGS biologist Heather Johnson; livein Fairbanks plus zoom.

Every meeting will feature an engaging speaker from one of Alaska’s 16 Refuges or who is closely involved with our Refuges.

2019 January Membership Meeting – Jan. 15 (CANCELLED)

Due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, this meeting has been canceled. We hope to have Bill Carter present at a future membership meeting.

Please join us on Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 5-6pm, for the Friends membership meeting.

In person: Homer (Alaska Maritime) or Soldotna (Kenai NWR)
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Guest Speaker Presentation:
Bill Carter – “A Permafrost Thaw Slump and Its Effect on Selawik River Inconnu (Sheefish) Spawning Recruitment”

In the summer of 2004, a retrogressive permafrost thaw slump (slump, mudslide) began dumping sediment into the Selawik River in northwest Alaska. It’s location above the spawning area of one of two Inconnu populations (Stenodus leucichthys) that share rearing and overwintering habitat in Selawik Lake, Hotham Inlet and Kotzebue Sound was cause for concern for local subsistence users and fisheries managers. The subsequent erosion of material from the slump has deposited more than 365,000 m3 (477,402 yd3) of sediment into the river, and the silt plume could be seen over 145 km (90 mi) downstream. The spawning area, only 40 km (25 mi) downstream, was threatened by heavy sedimentation. A population age structure study to explore the effects of the slump using otolith (ear bone) aging began in 2011, giving us pre-slump age data as the first recruits from the 2004 spawning event wouldn’t return until the age-9 (2014). Age structure data has revealed an interesting population dynamic not only in the Selawik River population but also in its sister population of Inconnu in the Kobuk River that is being used as an experimental control.

Check here for presentation materials, closer to the meeting date.

*SIX meetings yearly: January, February, March, April, September, October

2018 October Membership Meeting – Oct. 16th

Please join us on Tuesday, October 16th, 5-6pm, for the Friends membership meeting.

In person: Homer (Alaska Maritime) or Soldotna (Kenai NWR)
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Agenda:

2018 September Membership Meeting – Sept. 18th

Please join us on Tuesday, September 18th, 5-6pm, for the Friends membership meeting.

In person: Homer (Alaska Maritime) or Soldotna (Kenai NWR)
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Note Program Change: Too much fire to talk fire! The Kenai Fire Staff is on their way to the lower 48 where the fire season is still going hot in what Assistant Fire Manager Mike Hill calls “the new normal.” The Fire on the Kenai program will be rescheduled after the snow flies.

Agenda:

Introductions and Discussion (5 minutes)
Introductions: Where do you live? (Poppy)
New People: Why did you join the call today?
Reminder to please mute yourselves when you aren’t talking

Board Activities/Decisions– Refuge Projects Approved (Betty)

Committee Reports (2-5 minutes each):
Volunteer Report – (Betty)
Summer projects wrap up – overview of funded volunteer projects
Call for board/ committee members

Membership/Outreach Events:
Upcoming events in Kenai and Homer (Tara)
Other Outreach (Poppy)
Details for all on our EVENTS tab – on website; we’ll send more updates via newsletter

Advocacy Updates (David Raskin)

Speaker/Presentation (30-40 minutes):
Special Guest: Matt Conner, Ranger/Kenai National Wildlife Refuge
Topic: “If You Teach a Kid to Fish“

Although just 3 hours down the road from Alaska’s largest city, the Kenai Refuge is unknown and inaccessible to many Anchorage kids. The Refuge partnered with Alaska Geographic and others to find those urban teens who have had no opportunity to experience the wild and bring them to the refuge. Kenai Ranger Matt Connor uses flyfishing and archery to entice urban teens into engaging with and feeling comfortable in the outdoors. No cell phone can offer the hands-on excitement of catching fish on a fly you have tied yourself.

Come hear about Matt’s successful program “Stick and String Naturalist” and find out how you can help. Stick and String campers learn stream ecology, aquatic invertebrates, and stream conservation and how to apply that knowledge to fishing skills such as knowing what fly to tie and how to read the riffles in the river. They journal about nature, learn outdoor cooking, camping skills, photography and reading the landscape. Ranger Matt is looking for flyfishing and archery knowledgeable Friends plus new ideas to help him expand this program to get more kids outside and connected to the refuges of Alaska!

Download Stick-and-String Presentation

Next Meeting: Tuesday October, 5-6pm/ Susanna Henry, “Togiak Refuge’s Cape Peirce – Scenery, Wildlife, and Management Challenges”

*SIX meetings yearly: January, February, March, April, September, October

2018 April Membership Meeting

In person: Homer (Alaska Maritime) or Soldotna (Kenai NWR)
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Special Guest: Sara Straub, Student Conservation Association Intern and former Directorate Fellow
Topic: “75th Battle of Attu Commemoration”

For thousands of years, the island of Attu was home to people and wildlife. Long before the war, Attu was one of the earliest Federally protected wildlife resource areas. The Battle of Attu forever changed the island, its inhabitants, and the lives of those who waged battle there, leaving behind scars and stories scattered among the national wildlife refuge that exists today. Student Conservation Association Intern and former Directorate Fellow Sara Straub will highlight the events of 75 years ago on the island of Attu and share the commemorative activities that are have been held already and those scheduled for this spring. For more details on the commemoration check out the website: Attu75.org

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2018 March Membership Meeting

Please join us on Tuesday, March 20, for the Friends membership meeting.
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Special Guest: Kristine Sowl, Yukon Delta NWR
“The importance of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to shorebirds and recent efforts to obtain population estimates”

Kristine will present on the population estimates derived from the 2015-16 PRISM surveys and discuss how these may change some of the continental population estimates for several shorebird species.

Kristine Sowl is a wildlife biologist who studies wildlife ecology in subarctic ecosystems. She currently is in charge of the non-game bird program (landbirds, shorebirds, raptors, and seabirds) at Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in western Alaska. She has spent over 25 years working as a biologist on public lands in Alaska, including Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, and brief stints at the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge and Aniakchak National Monument. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1985 and completed a Master of Science in Wildlife Biology from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 2003. Currently, her work is focused on the breeding and migration ecology of Beringian shorebirds, including the bar-tailed godwit, black turnstone, bristle-thighed curlew, western sandpiper, and Pacific subspecies of dunlin.

2018 February Membership Meeting

In person: Homer (Alaska Maritime) or Soldotna (Kenai NWR)
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Special Guest: Patrick Walsh, Supervisory Biologist/Togiak NWR

Stories and Studies of Wolves at Togiak National Wildlife Refuge

We have formally studied wolves for the past 10 years at Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, focusing most effort on understanding the role wolves play in regulating moose and caribou populations. This presentation will provide the results of a completed study of wolf predation on a small caribou herd, and will provide preliminary results from an ongoing study of wolf predation on the refuge’s moose population. During the course of the formal studies, we have made a number of incidental observations on wolf life history and behavior that are worth telling. So, this talk will be a combination of studies and stories about the wolves of Togiak Refuge.

Download Powerpoint Presentation

Māhuahua pū Friends Workshop

Our Alaska Friends Board and the Hawaiian Islands Friends Boards have been invited to a workshop on Kauai in January 2018. This opportunity will be funded by grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation (NFWF).

The main items on the agenda will be: Communications using social media, Member recruitment and engagement, Board development and retention. Five board members and our Coordinator will attend, joined by Steve Delehanty and Helen Strackeljahn of USFWS.

Friends expect to return to Alaska with fresh ideas and new tools to use for greater benefit to our Alaska Refuges. They hope that new or inactive members will be encouraged to take on leadership roles so they may also take advantage of ongoing training and educational opportunities both in and outside of Alaska.

BECOME A FRIEND – GET INVOLVED!

2017 November Membership Meeting

Please join us on Tuesday, November 28, for the Friends membership meeting.
(*Note: due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we’ve moved our meeting back one week)

In person: Homer (Alaska Maritime) or Soldotna (Kenai NWR)
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Special Guest: Nate Berg, Wildlife Biologist/Tetlin NWR

Northwest Boreal Lynx Project

Researchers in Interior Alaska at Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest, Tetlin NWR, Yukon Flats NWR, Kanuti NWR, Koyukuk/Nowitna/Innoko NWR, and Gates of the Arctic NPP as well as in Northwest Canada are working together to study the long distance movements of Canada lynx in relation to the 10-year cycle of their primary prey, the snowshoe hare. Lynx are being fitted with satellite GPS collars that allow us to track their movements. Collared lynx are showing us what habitats they prefer, where they choose to have their young, when and where they choose to disperse, which landscape features act as corridors and which might be barriers to their dispersal. In addition to GPS data we are also collecting hair samples for genetic and isotope analysis. We are using this information to better understand relatedness and origin of lynx and to develop landscape connectivity models that allow us to identify the areas most important for lynx conservation at the local, regional, and continental scale.

Follow the PowerPoint presentation here (or download a copy):

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2017 October Membership Meeting

Please join us on Tuesday, October 17, for the Friends membership meeting.
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Special Guest: Mandy Bernard
The Kenai Mountains to Sea Partnership: A Local Effort to Address Climate Change at a Landscape Scale

Kenai Mountains to Sea partners envision a landscape of connected private and public lands. They are working with willing landowners, agencies and tribal entities, and strengthening longstanding and effective private-public partnerships dedicated to voluntarily conserving and enhancing fish and wildlife habitats for the continuing economic, recreational and cultural benefits to residents and visitors of the Kenai.

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2017 September Membership Meeting

Please join us on Tuesday, September 19, for the Friends membership meeting.
Call in a few minutes before 5pm: (866) 556-2149, code :8169747#

Outreach Update:

Special Presenter: Kendra Bush-St. Louis, environmental educator with the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge:

Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is a vast refuge teaming with wildlife. It encompasses almost 3.5 million acres with over 6,000 miles of coastlines on almost 2,500 islands and headlands. Each year, staff members, volunteers, youth hires, and community partners come together to accomplish great things in the name of wild places and marine life. Join Refuge Environmental Education Specialist, Kendra Bush-St. Louis, as she shares accomplishments from this summer’s youth engagement, including a one of a kind YCC program, three science and culture camps, and the use of the coolest education platform ever, the R/V Tiglax.

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Alaska National Wildlife Refuges

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Category: Meetings

2019 January Membership Meeting – Jan. 15 (CANCELLED)

2018 October Membership Meeting – Oct. 16th

2018 September Membership Meeting – Sept. 18th

2018 April Membership Meeting

2018 March Membership Meeting

2018 February Membership Meeting

Māhuahua pū Friends Workshop

2017 November Membership Meeting

2017 October Membership Meeting

2017 September Membership Meeting

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