Author: kfskadmin

The University of Alaska is working with commercial fishermen to study how best to keep whales away from fishing gear.
Researchers with the Seagrant Marine Advisory Program are spending several days on the water in the Petersburg-Wrangell area this spring and summer. They’re studying whale behavior around gillnetters and the methods some fishermen use to avoid or deter the animals. Often, that can simply involve making some sort of noise like reving the engine or banging on the side of the boat.
The local study is already underway with a few gillnetters who are part of the states king salmon test fishery in district eight. Seagrant has a companion effort in the works with seiners in the kodiak area. The idea is to figure out what methods work best and provide that information to all fishermen around the state.
The program’s Sunny Rice of Petersburg and Kate Wynne of Kodiak call it MAD whales, which an acronym for monitoring, avoiding and deterring whales. They spoke with KFSK’s Matt Lichtenstein:

Local and visiting artists are showing off their works throughout Petersburg’s Mayfest celebration. KFSK’s Alex Hotz visited several displays around town and put together this audio portrait.

The Petersburg City Council this week voted against budgeting 50 thousand dollars to update the town’s comprehensive plan. City administrators had planned to hire a consultant to help revise the 9-year old document, but the councilors were not ready to spend the money. Matt Lichtenstein has a look at that decision and some other news from Tuesday’s special budget meeting.

Petersburg’s draft budget for next year attracted little debate among council members during a special meeting this week. That’s largely because the Council’s finance committee has already reviewed the spending plan. The rest of the council agreed to most of their recommended changes Tuesday night.
One exception was a proposal to spend 800 thousand dollars of the city’s federal education funds for energy conservation improvements at the school district. School officials didn’t object to the capital project itself, but they did have a problem with the funding source.
As a result, voters may see a bond issue on the ballot this fall.

This season was a bit of a let-down for herring gillnetters at Seymour canal off southern Admiralty Island. Catches dropped off dramatically after the first day of the fishery in late April and the opportunity for a second opening never panned out early this month. Fish and game decided to close the 2009 season last Thursday (may7th) after waiting several days for more fish to show up. Matt Lichtenstein spoke with Fish and Game about how things went.