FAIRBANKS, Alaska — October 14, 2013 — Among the many Americans affected by the government shutdown, are scientists who rely on federal funding for their work. But that money doesn’t just go to the scientists. Lots of it trickles down into the community.
Local pilot Andy Greenblatt has been grounded all month. He owns Shadow Aviation. He says 85 percent of the flights he’s contracted for are paid for with state and the federal dollars. “We work for Forest Service, BLM, Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Fish and Game, DNR.” For nearly a decade, Greenblatt has flown with US Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist Randy Brown. “I do mostly migration research in the Yukon River and some other drainages in Northwest and Northern Alaska,” explains Brown.
Brown is in the midst of a long-term study on a species of whitefish called the Bering cisco. “It’s harvested in subsistence fisheries and it’s also the target in a commercial fishery right now that got started a few years ago and markets to people in New York City," he says. "So it’s the first of the whitefishes that I’m aware of that has an outside market.” He says high-end restaurants are clamoring for the fish, which they like to serve smoked. But no one knows how many Bering cisco there are, where exactly they spawn or how valuable the fishery can be. That’s why he’s using a method called radio-telemetry to find out more.
“We actually catch a fish without hurting it and implant a radio transmitter," explains Brown, "and then let the fish go and we follow where they go and then we fly aerial surveys, we get in an airplane with antennas on it and identify where they are at different times.”
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