John Piatt in 1981 taking a spin in his first "research vessel", a 26 foot Newfoundland trap skiff.

John Piatt conducts seabird and marine ecosystem research at the Alaska Biological Science Center. Says John: "I got hooked on seabirds in 1973 after spending a night on Great Island, Newfoundland"-- site of the largest Leach's Storm-petrel and Atlantic Puffin colony in the Northwest Atlantic.

Following three fog-filled summers as a naturalist at Cape St. Mary's Seabird Sanctuary and a degree in biochemistry, I obtained my Ph.D. in marine biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and wrote my thesis on 'Behavioural Ecology of Common Murre and Atlantic Puffin Predation on Capelin'.

John Piatt and family at home in Anchorage, 1997

I came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and studied Least and Crested Auklets on St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea. Since that time I have conducted research on seabirds in the Aleutians, Gulf of Alaska, and the Bering and Chukchi Seas, focusing on studies of feeding ecology and marine food webs, the distribution of seabirds in relation to oceanography, and effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on seabird populations.

Some members of the seabird and forage fish research team together at the 10th Annual Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Symposium held in Anchorage, March 1999 (from L-R: Martin Robards, Tom Van Pelt, John Piatt, Mike Shultz, Alisa Abookire, Mike Litzow, April Nielsen, Jeb Benson, Stephani Zador)

I am fascinated by the Auk family of seabirds (which includes the puffins, murres, murrelets and auklets), a fascination shared by my wife, Nancy Naslund, who studied Murrelets in California and Alaska for her Masters Degree at U.C. Santa Cruz. Nancy and I presently live in Anchorage with our three children, and a menagerie of dogs, cats, fish and birds.