A few paid internships are available, with an application deadline of March 3.
The internships are available in Seattle, Newport and Alaska, and cover subjects such as marine fish vision ecology, fishing gear technology, fish life history and genetics, among many others. Most positions will include field work.
Applicants must be enrolled in an undergraduate program, or recent graduates must show proof of enrollment in a degree-seeking program for the fall. Only U.S. citizens can apply for paid internships.
The AFSC facilities in Alaska include the Auke Bay Laboratory, 12 miles north of Juneau; the Little Port Walter facility located 110 miles south of Juneau near the tip of Baranof Island; and the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center.
The Auke Bay lab is offering internships for such projects as “Fish Distribution and Habitat Studies,” which is part of the groundfish assessment program that provides needed information to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to manage Alaska’s groundfish fisheries, one of the most valuable fishery resources in the nation.
The project will study links between fish habitat and coastal ecology, and supply additional information on the role of coastal ecosystems in determining fish distribution and abundance that will assist in identifying and describing essential fish habitat and in managing fishery resources under the jurisdiction of the NMFS Alaska Regional Office.
The Kodiak center will bring an intern in on a project titled “Biology and Cultivation of Alaskan Crabs.” The primary research objectives are to conduct studies on reproduction, growth and early life history of red, blue and golden king crabs; tanner crabs; and dungeness crabs. Primary duties of the intern will be feeding animals, cleaning tanks, testing water quality, keeping records and performing general lab maintenance.
The intern will assist with a variety of cultivation efforts and may be assigned to conduct one aspect of a project independently.
The Little Port Walter facility is conducting two projects that include internships. The first, entitled “Life History Characteristics of Chinook Salmon from Hatchery and Wild Populations/Juvenile Rockfish Habitat Use,” is a multi-year, multi-generational series of experiments designed to better understand the issues of domestication in hatchery populations of salmon and their potential divergence from wild populations, and to provide meaningful information about the risks and impacts of interactions between culture and wild salmon populations.
In the second project at Little Port Walter, “Steelhead/Rainbow Trout Life History Studies,” interns will assist with a variety of ongoing projects at the research station on southern Baranof Island designed to provide information on the environmental and genetic mechanisms relating to early maturation, smoltification and growth in rainbow trout populations that have an anadromous component.
Application forms and more information about the variety of internships available can be found at the AFSC website, www.afsc.noaa.gov/default.htm.
Completed applications and specific questions can be sent to: Rebecca F. Reuter, AFSC Diversity Panel Chairperson, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle WA 98115-6349, or e-mailed to Rebecca.Reuter@noaa.gov.
Cristy Fry has commercial fished in Homer since 1978. She also designs and builds gear for the industry. She currently longlines for halibut and gillnets salmon in upper Cook Inlet aboard the F/V Realist.
We encourage you to add your comments. To prevent spam, comments with links are manually approved during the normal business day. Please be respectful of others with your comments, bear in mind anyone in the community may be reading your comments.
