Save the date! Our fifth annual Prince William Sound Natural History Symposium will take place in person in Whittier at the Public Safety Building and online via Zoom on Tuesday, May 16th. Join us for this free day-long community event featuring the latest in news and research from around the Sound.
The theme for this year’s event is “Resilience: Perseverance and Tenacity in Prince William Sound.” The Symposium’s schedule includes a mix of returning speakers offering updates on staple topics such as landslides, glaciers, and land management news and first-time presenters focusing on cultural history, sea otters, and predator/prey ecology. We look forward to hearing from speakers from Chugach Alaska Corporation, Chugach Regional Resources Commission, the Chugach National Forest, the Alaska SeaLife Center, the U.S. Geological Survey, PWS Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, and more. View the full agenda below.
The fifth annual PWS Natural History Symposium is made possible through the generosity of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the Chugach Alaska Corporation, and the PWS Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, as well as the support of generous corporate and individual sponsors.
Start your PWS Natural History Symposium experience a day early by joining us for a private tour in Prince William Sound with local experts on Monday, May 15th!
Learn from local experts and bring your questions. Our journey up Blackstone Bay takes us close to shore, admiring the sheer cliff walls and tumbling waterfalls in route to two tidewater glaciers, Beloit and Blackstone. Learn from interpreters while sitting at the face of a wall of ice. Learn about bird ecology as you cruise up to a rookery where thousands of birds are nesting and raising their young. Experience the natural geology of this glacier-carved fjord and learn about the common plants found in this area. The captain will assist in a plankton tow while underway. We’ll get a chance to look in microscopes at the plankton, which is the start of the food chain supporting our rich marine life. You’ll leave this tour with foundational knowledge and experience to share and build upon this summer.
Tickets are $130 each. Call 1-907-694-6887 and reference PWS Natural History Symposium to book.
Also on May 15th, join USGS scientists for "Coffee with Scientists" from 5-7PM at Lazy Otter Cafe! Join this informal meet & greet to chat about landslide research in PWS, local landslide and tsunami monitoring, the current status of the Barry Arm Landslide, and the history of tsunami-landslides in Alaska. Complimentary coffee and tea will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.