Gus van Vliet

Gus van Vliet began his studies of seabirds as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan and over the subsequent decades has conducted marine bird research in northern Norway, Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, Chukchi Sea, northern Canada, and the northwest Pacific Ocean. Much of his work has been in close collaboration with others, particularly Alan Springer and John Piatt, and has generally been ecological in nature. Biological oceanography and trophic webs have been a driving interest, with emphasis on top-down controls within marine food webs, including marine mammals and salmon. In the early 1990s his two commentaries on Kittlitz’s Murrelets, published in the PSG Bulletin, were the first to sound an alarm over population trends, climate change, and the status of this enigmatic seabird. He continues to be an astute observer of patterns in marine ecosystems and how seabirds and marine mammals are directly and indirectly involved. He has just retired after a 25-year career at the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, having worked within all pollution media (i.e., air quality, water quality, contaminated sites, and oil spill response/prevention).

In recognition of his pioneering contributions to the conservation of Kittlitz’s and Marbled Murrelets in Alaska and his decades of commitment to understand and protect these mysterious seabirds, PSG honors Gus Van Vliet with a Special Achievement Award.