Biography
GIS Postgraduate Certificate, Simon Fraser University
Honours BSc Oceanography/Biology, University of British Columbia

Supervisors: Dr. Mark Cresswell, Dr. Andrew Trites

Thesis:
How big is the smorgasbord? Estimating range wide prey distributions for Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in Alaska.

Little is known about the abundance and distribution of prey consumed by the endangered Steller sea lions in western Alaskan. Nor is it known whether fisheries, natural changes and regional differences in species composition may be contributing to these declines. To help in assessing these possibilities I will be mapping the distribution of commercially important species consumed by sea lions (such as walleye pollock, Pacific cod, and Atka mackerel) to determine whether differences in prey availability depend on the geographic regions inhabited by sea lions within Alaskan. To do this I will be creating regional ecological models based on the relationships between the fish species and the oceanography of the area. The oceanographic data used will be a combination of remotely sensed data and regional oceanographic models that give a continuous surface of data throughout Alaska waters. These models can then be used to predict the distributions of fish throughout the SSL Alaskan range and a comparison between regions will be done to determine how much biomass and energy is available to Steller sea lion subpopulations as well as determine the total prey available within their Alaskan range.

Publications:

Flinn, R. D., A. W. Trites, E. J. Gregr, and R. I. Perry. 2002. Diets of fin, sei, and sperm whales in British Columbia: An analysis of commercial whaling records, 1963-1967. Marine Mammal Science 18(1):663-679.

Nichol, L. M., E. J. Gregr, R. Flinn, J.K.B. Ford, R. Gurney, L. Michaluk , and A. Peacock 2002. British Columbia commercial whaling catch data 1908 to 1967: A detailed description of the BC Historical Whaling Database. Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 2396: viii + 76 p.