In their fight to regain access to Qayassiq, tribal leaders created a model for communities to act as equal management partners.

Two Bristol Bay residents are spearheading an indigenous-led environmental monitoring program. Mary Hostetter and Bill Kane say their work, while still in its planning stages, is a foundation for an indigenous guardian program. The project recently won a 2023 Edge Prize.

The Skipper Science app is one tool in a larger arsenal developed by the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island in conjunction with their Indigenous Sentinels Network, a statewide network of tribes, researchers, and communities focused on conservation. The network is focused on the intersection of western science practices and a long tradition of indigenous and local knowledge practices.

As an El Niño weather pattern develops, Bristol Bay is stuck in a cloudy transition.

At the end of the commercial fishing season in Bristol Bay, fleets will discard thousands of nets and pounds of old rain gear. But the Curyung Tribe is partnering with two recycling companies to keep the waste out of the landfill.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently killed 104 bears and wolves as part of intensive management measures aimed at growing the Mulchatna caribou herd in southwest Alaska. But research suggests that disease and habitat quality, not predation, are largely driving this decline.

Most of the sea ice is gone from Bristol Bay, according to the National Weather Service. That means their bi-weekly sea ice updates have come to an end. For more, KDLG caught up with Kayla Tinker, a sea ice meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage.

"It's definitely lasting longer than we expected it to," said Don Moore of the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center. "And unfortunately, this low is just going to cause it to spin, generally speaking, around the Gulf of Alaska."

By Thursday afternoon, Alaska Airlines reported canceling 28 flights due to ash from the volcano. The National Weather Service has issued an aviation warning for the Aleutians, Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak.

Representatives will participate in the Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference and will also host a training session on how to track seabird die-offs at the Bristol Bay campus on Friday.