OPAS Monthly Meeting and Program, “The Black Guillemot’s Dilemma: Evolve or Go Extinct”
Presented by George Divoky
November 18 at 7:00 p.m.
Meeting held by Zoom. Register below to receive Zoom information
OPAS will address a few updates, with the presentation to follow. This promises to be an exceptional program.
On a remote Alaskan sandbar, under the watchful eye of a devoted scientist for more than four decades, climate change is forcing a colony of seabirds into a real-time race: evolve or go extinct. — Audubon Magazine Winter 2017
George Divoky
Studying the Black Guillemots of Cooper Island in the Alaska Arctic has largely been a solitary venture for George Divoky. While the discovery and initial years of the study were part of governmental research related to oil development in northern Alaska, for the past four decades the work has been conducted with occasional grants and much personal dedication. Long-term studies, such as George’s, rarely can be conducted by the government, which typically focus on immediate agency needs, while the duration of most academic research is insufficient to allow real understanding of multi-decadal trends. Yet it is precisely this type of extended data set that is needed to monitor the long-term cycles and trends related to climate change and other atmospheric variation.
George has been studying seabirds in Arctic Alaska since 1970 and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This kind of sustained scientific observation is almost unheard for polar ecosystems.
Register for the “The Black Guillemot’s Dilemma: Evolve or Go Extinct” virtual meeting by clicking on the button below. Scroll down in your confirmation email from Eventbrite to the "Additional information" for Zoom instructions. You will also receive a reminder one day before the event that will again provide the Zoom instructions.