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Upcoming! "A Tale of Two Kelp Forests"—USGS Will Observe Sea Otter Awareness Week with a Public Lecture on September 27 in Menlo Park, California
Schools, museums, aquariums, zoos, and other organizations along the west coast will celebrate Sea Otter Awareness Week from September 23 to 29, 2007. This weeklong event is designed to educate the public about the integral role that sea otters play in the nearshore marine ecosystem, as well as the importance of biological diversity. As part of the celebration, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) office in Menlo Park, California, will offer a public lecture on sea otters on the evening of Thursday, September 27. Tim Tinker, a research biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a collaborator with USGS sea-otter expert Jim Estes, will present "A Tale of Two Kelp Forests: Sea Otters and Ecosystem Dynamics in the Aleutians and the Commander Islands." For 15 years Tinker has been studying sea-otter populations in Alaska, California, and, most recently, the Russian Commander Islands. His lecture will explore reasons why sea-otter populations in the central and western Aleutian Islands have declined by 75 to 95 percent over the past 15 to 20 years, while populations in the nearby Russian Commander Islands—which are physically and biologically quite similar to the Aleutians—have remained nearly stable. For information about the USGS Monthly Public Lecture series in Menlo Park, visit URL http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/; to learn more about Sea Otter Awareness Week, visit URL http://www.defenders.org/seaotter/awareness/.
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in this issue:
California Sea Otter Count Reaches New High
MIT Students Tour USGS Woods Hole Science Center Coastal-Hazards Research Featured in First USGS Podcast
Airborne-Lidar Technology and Applications Workshop
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U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
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