Local NOAA Fisheries photographers place in national contest

Photographers from NOAA Fisheries offices in Juneau made a strong showing in a national photographic contest helping mark the 200th Anniversary of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA's leader, Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, announced contest winners yesterday. NOAA photographers entered about 2,000 photos in the contest nationwide.

Researchers with herring caught during an acoustic trawl survey. Photo by David Csepp, NOAA Fisheries.

David Csepp, a research biologist at the Alaska Fishery Science Center's Auke Bay Laboratories, earned a second place for his photo of researchers with herring caught during an acoustic trawl survey in Lynn Canal near Juneau.

Aleria Jensen, marine mammal stranding coordinator for NOAA Fisheries' Alaska Region, took third for a photograph of volunteer veterinarians Rachel Berngartt and Kate Savage (members of the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network) performing a necropsy (under NMFS permit 932-1489-08) on a humpback whale calf found stranded on Baranof Island at Dead Man's Reach.

Earning honorable mentions were photos by:

• Mandy Lindeberg, a research fish biologist at the Auke Bay Laboratories, for a photo of April fish sampling in Alaska---researchers Scott Johnson and John Thedinga beach seining in a snow storm for early samples of post-winter forage fish at Whale Bay, Prince William Sound. She also took honorable mention in the 'Strange and Unusual' category for a photo of a ratfish
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• David Csepp, for a winter shot of Auke Bay harbor near Juneau and for one of a mostly-buried sandfish.
• Linda Shaw, a habitat biologist at NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region, for a photo of co-workers examining shrimp caught during a survey examining effects of log transfer facilities on essential fish habitat in Hanus Bay, Southeast Alaska.

Volunteer veterinarians Rachel Berngartt and Kate Savage performing a necropsy on a humpback whale calf. Photo by Aleria Jensen, NOAA Fisheries.

Judges for the contest were Bert Fox of National Geographic Magazine; Leena Jayaswal, Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.; and Rick Steele, who has lived and photographed all over the world for such press organizations as United Press International and the Washington Post Company.

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) is dedicated to protecting and preserving our nation’s living marine resources through scientific research, management, enforcement, and the conservation of marine mammals and other protected marine species and their habitat. To learn more about NOAA Fisheries in Alaska, please visit our websites at www.fakr.noaa.gov or at www.afsc.noaa.gov.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.