NOAA Fisheries Intern and Resident Expert in Alaska’s Pribilof Islands

Sheela McLean
NOAA Fisheries

January 15, 2009 — NOAA Fisheries Service sent Juan Leon Guerrero back to a place he already knows well — Alaska’s Pribilof Islands.  He is working for the agency’s Alaska Region as a student intern through the Student Career Employment Program and someday may join NOAA as a salaried employee.

To many, the Pribolofs are exotic and extremely remote islands in the Bering Sea north of the Aleutian island chain and 200 miles off the Alaskan mainland. These four volcanic islands serve as summer home for most of the world’s northern fur seals and for various marine birds. To Leon Guerrero they are familiar turf. His mother was born in St. Paul in the Pribilofs and spent the majority of her life there. Leon Guerrero’s father, also named Juan, worked for NOAA’s National Weather Service in the 1960s and 1970s.

Leon Guerrero was born in Guam and moved to Alaska when he was six years old.  He then spent time in Oregon before settling into a routine — at the age of 14 — of spending part of every year fishing in Alaska. He fished between the Aleutian Islands and St. Matthews for halibut in the summer and crab in the winter.

Leon Guerrero’s summer internship with NOAA Fisheries began in mid-June. He moved from Fairbanks, where he was attending school, to Anchorage, which is the base of operations for NOAA Fisheries’ Pribilof Islands Program. 

"My first summer was full with both classes and work for NOAA mostly focused on the fur seals,” said Leon Guerrero, “I look forward to finishing my schooling and focusing completely on the job."  

His primary internship duties focused on studying the subsistence harvest of northern fur seals.  He also participated in population assessment research, northern fur seal habitat monitoring, northern fur seal entanglement assessment, collaborating with tribal governments on St. Paul and St. George Islands, and facilities management. Since the summer field season, Leon Guerrero has been finding, organizing, and summarizing historic subsistence harvest information and data on fur seal entanglement.

NOAA's Fisheries Service has worked extensively with governments in the Pribilofs to coordinate, monitor and manage the subsistence harvest of northern fur seals. He is working to safeguard the seals’ existence; while preserving a cultural tradition that dates back at least to the late 19th century.  

“Juan’s experiences and knowledge in the Pribilof Islands are going to benefit our agency,” said Doug Mecum, acting NOAA Fisheries Service administrator for the Alaska Region. “His participation in the Student Career Employment Program will help us to build stronger relationships and local capacity in the sciences and natural resource management fields.” 

Leon Guerrero is working towards a Bachelor of Science degree in wildlife biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and needs to complete four more classes in order to reach the required total of 640 hours. He must also graduate with a 3.0 grade point average in order to move directly from an internship to become a NOAA Fisheries Service employee.