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TRCP Announces New Conservation Staff Member in Alaska
Alaska senior program manager will bolster organization’s expertise and capacity on key conservation issues
Today, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership announced the addition of Chelsea Pardo who will fill the vital role of Alaska senior program manager. This position will help the organization achieve its mission to guarantee all Americans quality places to hunt and fish.
Pardo lives in the Mat-Su Valley of Alaska and holds an Associate of Applied Science in Fisheries Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Alaska. Most recently, Pardo managed the Governor’s Permit Program through the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Wildlife Conservation Division. In this role, she collaborated with non-profit organizations to raffle or auction hunting and bear viewing permits, raising funds for statewide wildlife management and research efforts.
As Alaska’s senior program manager, Pardo will work to strengthen TRCP’s partnerships with state and federal agencies, rural communities, Tribes, and hunting, fishing, and conservation groups to advance conservation priorities for hunters and anglers.
“I’m thrilled to join the TRCP and focus on conservation efforts for hunters and anglers in Alaska,” said Pardo. “Having grown up in Alaska with the privilege of fishing for salmon and hunting bears, I’m eager to help preserve these opportunities for all.”
Learn more about TRCP’s leadership HERE.
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
In The Arena: Ed Contreras
TRCP’s “In the Arena” series highlights the individual voices of hunters and anglers who, as Theodore Roosevelt so famously said, strive valiantly in the worthy cause of conservation.
Ed Contreras
Hometown: Sun Valley, California
Occupation: Southern Oregon-Northeastern California Conservation Delivery Coordinator
Conservation Credentials: Ed Contreras is a biologist, hunter, angler and occasionally a cowboy who takes inspiration from living in the West and his family’s humble roots of living close to the land in Mexico. He works for the Intermountain West Joint Venture, a public-private conservation organization that focuses on bird habitat. He resides in Klamath Falls Oregon.
Contreras’ conservation work involves developing conservation programs and projects to assist private landowners as they steward water and land for wildlife in southern Oregon and northeastern California. He excels in connecting private landowners with a cadre of tools and people from state and federal agencies, as well as non-profits, to help meet their conservation goals and keep agricultural operations intact. Relationship building is at the heart of Contreras’ work, and he is known for his ability to bring people together to achieve conservation successes.
Here is his story.
I did not grow up hunting, but I became obsessed with fishing in middle school and then fly fishing in high school. Fishing was a gateway for me, as it is for many adult-onset hunters, as it’s a less imposing activity for those new to hunting. My dad is from rural Mexico and hunting for subsistence was a part of his early life, but hunting for recreation within the framework employed by agencies to manage for sustainable populations was a foreign concept. The expense of hunting licenses, the myriad of rules, and living in urban southern California with no connections to other hunters, kept hunting out of my family. However, my dad’s stories of the adventure and chase of wild game in his youth instilled a passion in me for the outdoors. As a freshman at the University of Montana, I quickly made lifelong friends who grew up hunting, and I jumped into my hunting endeavors with both feet.
My early exposure to my family’s rural and small-scale agriculture and forestry-based community in Jalisco, Mexico, fueled an incongruous interest in agriculture. My father’s family had a small herd of cows for both beef and dairy products and my grandfather, father, and uncles worked as cowboys and herdsmen for neighboring ranches. My brief visits to Mexico and my father’s childhood tales of encounters with jaguars and horse and cow wrecks when “things got western” captured my interest in rural life. This was a stark contrast from my day-to-day in the inner city of the San Fernando Valley.
I eventually followed this trail and leveraged my limited experience but deep connection to my family’s agriculture legacy, into my first real job at 18 working for a wilderness outfitter in the Sierra Nevada’s of California. For the first summer, I was certainly the green kid from LA, but I sharpened my skills with long days in the mountains learning how to care and work with horses and mules and providing a safe and enjoyable wilderness experience for clients. Oddly enough, this job taught me just as much about working with people. After three summers, the summer gig cemented a childhood notion into a realization: that being outside and working with domestic stock and wildlife was something I could do for a paycheck and was exactly how I wanted to live my life.
Today, my wife and I have our own horses and pack mule. We take a summer horse pack trip with our friends into a different Wilderness every year and we volunteer to pack-in trail crews and clear local trails with the U.S. Forest Service. On the weekends, we help our rancher friends move, doctor, and brand cows; we enjoy improving our stockmanship skills, and it gives our horses jobs. A newer activity in my life has been hunting with bird dogs. My first dog, a German Wirehaired Pointer, is now four years old, and despite being a novice bird dog owner/trainer, she is progressing to becoming a very useful bird dog and always-ready hunting partner. I now can’t picture myself without a bird dog in the future.
My entry into a career in wildlife biology mirrors the other interests in my life. I combined many elements I care about to find the niche of private lands habitat conservation where I work closely with NGO’s, local watershed groups, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
When I started in this field 10 years ago, I served the role of a conservation project planner working with landowners to develop projects, execute funding agreements, and complete environmental compliance (like NEPA) required to implement habitat projects through Farm Bill programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Today, I do some conservation project planning, but I also inform program development, secure funding for habitat programs, and help boost conservation capacity by establishing new conservation positions to implement more projects on-the-ground. This has been especially critical since the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, as the organization I work for has focused on helping make sure the pieces are in place to guide these funds into impactful projects. We do this by sharing new science and science tools with our partners to develop science-based habitat conservation strategies and monitor the ecological benefit of projects.
I hope other hunters can join me in learning about and appreciating the value private land, agriculture, and wonky government programs have for our ability to hunt and fish.
I’d be remiss not to highlight the importance of public lands for waterbird habitat in Southern Oregon and Northeastern California, including the National Wildlife Refuges protected by President Theodore Roosevelt in the Klamath Basin. Public wetlands that hunters and birders cherish have suffered due to their low priority in water allocations. However, their importance to the overall ecologic function of the Klamath Basin and Pacific Flyway have become more apparent during recent droughts.
Collaborative discussions between agencies, irrigators, and tribes are working towards innovative solutions to water on National Wildlife Refuges. Although irrigated agriculture also faces water security challenges, private lands often provide more stable wetland habitat in this region. Supporting Farm Bill programs that keep agricultural producers in business—and sustaining wetland habitat through flood irrigation practices—is key to sustaining waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway. Large federal funding packages like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act can be hugely helpful in leveraging Farm Bill dollars to invest in projects that bolster wildlife habitat that hunters directly benefit from.
All of these programs can be made more successful by combining the local knowledge of landowners/managers and biologists with new spatial data tools like the Wetland Evaluation Tool, which shows where more resilient wetland habitat exists on the landscape, or the Working Wetlands Explorer, which shows where flood-irrigated grass hay practices are contributing to important wetland habitat. Strategic conservation planning using these tools better informs where American taxpayer dollars are spent on both private and public lands and ensures that we are protecting habitat that can provide the maximum benefit to wildlife.
My most memorable hunts in the Klamath Basin are spring goose hunts for white-fronted geese. The sound of air rushing against feather and the brassy-sounding calls in the center of a vortex of hundreds of speckle bellies is an awesome experience. The bag limit of white-fronted geese in this area is 10 birds and it fills a freezer with the best meat of any waterfowl species. Large flocks of white-fronted geese make intensive use of private lands in the spring, especially in short-grazed pastures and early spring-planted crops near water. For this reason, access for hunters can be a challenge but many landowners welcome hunting as a way to deter geese depredation of forage and grain crops.
I hope other hunters can join me in learning about and appreciating the value private land, agriculture, and wonky government programs have for our ability to hunt and fish. Water in the West is precious and there’s less and less of it to go around. That’s not going to change anytime soon so we should all try to work together to stretch every drop.
Photo credits: Ed Contreras
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
The Restoration of Sitka Blacktail Deer Habitat in Southeast Alaska: Part 2
In Part I of this two-part series, Bjorn Dihle covered how a significant portion of Southeast Alaska’s young growth forest is about to enter stem exclusion, or is already there. Stem exclusion is when young growth forests have grown so close together they blot out the sun, creating a closed canopy where there is no understory for Sitka blacktails to browse. The Forest Service is currently switching from pre-commercial treatments of young growth to wildlife treatment, which will create more deer and hunting opportunities in the future.
Prince of Wales Island residents Quinn Aboudara and Jim Baichtal are two of the many local residents fighting for the future of Sitka blacktails. Aboudara’s ancestors have been hunting these deer since time immemorial.
“They mean everything to us,” Aboudara said. “I cannot stress how much they mean to us. It’s part of who we are. We are hunters. We are fishermen. We are gatherers. The cost of living in these rural communities is so high. A single deer will save me $1,700 of meat from the store. I can talk about how important deer are to us all day. How deep do we want to go?”
Baichtal moved to Prince of Wales Island in 1990. Since then, he estimates the deer population has dropped 60%, and it’s predicted to continue to decline unless something changes. Baichtal’s devotion to Sitka blacktails is well known as he’s worked with biologists, filmmakers, and conservation groups to advocate for these deer. He and others created the Sitka Black-Tailed Deer Coalition, to help raise awareness for the deer. Baichtal also collaborated with biologist Sophie Gilbert, Sitka Gear, and Randy Newberg’s Fresh Tracks to make Rain Deer, a unique hunting film that’s well worth a watch. Baichtal retired a few years ago from his work as a geologist for the Forest Service, and almost immediately reentered the workforce as the Alaska Regional Coordinator for the Mule Deer Foundation.
As highlighted in the previous blog, Southeast Alaska has the opportunity to complete restoration work on thousands of acres of young growth forest that’s entered stem exclusion in a way that will benefit deer and other wildlife. Baichtal and Aboudara—the coordinator for Klawock Indigenous Stewards Forest Partnership—are working with the Forest Service, along with a number of Tribes, communities, and non-profits, to help with these restoration projects. Baichtal and Scott Leorna, the Alaska Regional Conservation Coordinator for the Mule Deer Foundation, have big plans for the future.
“What will happen if you open a stand is pretty well understood,” Baichtal said. “We have an incredible opportunity with the volume of our older young growth. It’s like 400,000 to 600,000 acres of young growth that could be treated for wildlife.”
Baichtal and Leorna are waiting for money from Congress to begin restoration work. In the meantime, they’re busy strategizing with partners to deliberately plan out protocol and procedures. This includes community outreach so “priorities are reflected in the treatments and areas considered.” They are also developing a monitoring strategy to measure the outcomes of treatments and exploring how to make wildlife treatments economically feasible.
The Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy
The USDA announced the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy in July of 2020. The strategy aims “to support a diverse economy, enhance community resilience, and conserve natural resources in Southeast Alaska.”
SASS has four main components:
- To end large-scale old-growth timber sales on Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest and focus management resources to support forest restoration, recreation, and resilience, including for wildlife habitat and watershed improvement.
- To restore conservation management to undeveloped roadless areas.
- To engage in meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations.
- To identify short- and long-term opportunities for investments that reflect the diverse opportunities and needs in the region.
Money from SASS went to a variety of projects that fit the above criteria, including salmon stream and wildlife habitat restoration work. SASS funding also went to Angoon’s Native corporation, Kootznoowoo, Inc., so it could explore the possibility of opening a bear viewing area nearby. Kootznoowoo hired me to help out with that project. SASS has allowed Kootznoowoo to establish a guide academy to help locals learn about guiding bear viewing and guiding other types of outdoor recreation around their community.
The Forest Service writes, “In alignment with SASS, the Forest Service is refocusing resources on the Tongass National Forest to implement an integrated forest management program that includes watershed and wildlife habitat restoration, sustainable young-growth harvest, and old-growth harvest for small timber sales and cultural uses.”
SASS helped lift the restoration work headed by Quinn Aboudara and the Klawock Indigenous Stewards Forest Partnership off the ground.
“SAAS investment gave us the kick we needed to get things going. It continues to support us. I can’t say enough for what it’s done,” said Aboudara.
“[Sitka blacktails] mean everything to us,” Quinn Aboudara said. “I cannot stress how much they mean to us. It’s part of who we are. We are hunters. We are fishermen. We are gatherers.”
The partnership used SASS money to train field crews on how to complete wildlife thinning and stream restoration, buy equipment, and pay crew wages. They began wildlife treatments in 2021. Aboudara’s crew was very experienced doing pre-commercial thinning, but they had to take a different approach for wildlife.
“The problem comes with slash treatments,” Aboudara said. “The past 40 years of slash has not been treated. There’s slash that’s 12 feet deep and it’s a huge barrier to wildlife movement and forage. Wildlife treatment’s emphasis is to get slash as close as possible to the ground so it deteriorates faster and grows forage. You have to go slower and you end up cutting corridors for wildlife. It’s all about enhancing habitat. One example is blueberry bushes. They’re key forage, especially winter forage, for deer. Wildlife thinning stays out of blueberry patches and opens up surrounding areas.”
Deer for Generations to Come
Aboudara believes in the future that all thinning areas should receive wildlife treatments.
“I was raised in an Alaska Native household. These deer are part of who we are. The fact I can take my kids up the mountain behind my house to hunt deer—that was the mountain I began hunting when I was nine-years-old. This year I’m going to take my seven-year-old up there and teach them about deer and how to provide for our family,” Aboudara said.
The Mule Deer Foundation is planning to start more chapters across Alaska. Baichtal and Leorna encourage folks to get involved in grassroots efforts and make their voices heard with anything involving Sitka blacktails.
“It’s incredible what Sitka blacktails mean to people across Southeast Alaska,” Baichtal said. “We’re excited to put boots on the ground and help deer numbers come back.”
Bjorn Dihle is an avid hunter, conservationist, and lifelong resident of Southeast Alaska.
Read Part I of this two-part series HERE.
Photos courtesy of Bjorn Dihle.
2024 Forage Fish Conservation Wrap-Up
A year-end update on our top four successes, and our 2025 forecast for menhaden and herring conservation
As 2024 wraps up, we’re excited to share this year’s key achievements in forage fish conservation made by TRCP, our partners, and dedicated members along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Forage fish like menhaden and herring are small but vital—they play a critical role in marine food webs and feed popular sportfish such as striped bass, redfish, bluefish, and speckled trout. There’s still a lot to accomplish in 2025 to protect these important species, but with your continued support, we’re ready to dive into the work ahead.
Our Top Four Forage Fish Successes of 2024
1. We successfully advocated for a half-mile buffer zone for industrial menhaden fishing in Louisiana
Our efforts with Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana led to a substantial decrease in fish spills, demonstrating clear ecological benefits. In 2024, the number of Gulf menhaden (or “pogies”) spilled due to industrial fishery operations dropped to approximately 350,000 – or only 26 percent of the annual average of 1.3 million fish recorded between 2013 and 2023. This represents a reduction of nearly 1 million fewer dead fish compared to previous seasons. The buffer was introduced in response to widespread concerns over wasteful fish spills, fouled beaches, and the loss of thousands of redfish caught as bycatch. Historically, these spills were frequent due to net tears occurring when fishing vessels operated in shallow waters near shore, damaging both marine habitats and spawning grounds. The regulation, enacted in April 2024, prohibits pogy boats from fishing within a half-mile of Louisiana’s coast, with extensions up to 3 miles in certain areas. This measure aims to protect sensitive nearshore ecosystems, which serve as vital habitats for forage species like menhaden and sportfish such as redfish and speckled trout. Public records from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries indicate this year’s spill numbers were the second-lowest since data collection began in 2013, with only 2013 showing fewer losses.
2. We supported the establishment of a work group focused on the Chesapeake Bay menhaden fishery
In August, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Menhaden Management Board voted to establish a work group to explore precautionary management measures for the Chesapeake Bay menhaden fishery, with the goal of protecting predator species like ospreys and striped bass. Atlantic menhaden are crucial to the Bay’s ecosystem, serving as a primary food source for a variety of marine animals, including ospreys, which have struggled with chick-rearing success due to a lack of menhaden for food. The workgroup will focus on creating precautionary measures – such as time and area closures – during critical feeding periods for predators, addressing gaps in current management that do not explicitly consider the dietary needs of ospreys. The goal is to ensure the sustainability of the menhaden population and protect the health of the Bay’s predators while awaiting more detailed stock assessments in 2025.
Click here to demand better science for better management of Chesapeake Bay menhaden
3. Our voices were heard during scoping for Amendment 10 to the Atlantic Herring Management Plan
Public scoping occurred this spring at the New England Fishery Management Council. The ongoing decline of the Atlantic herring stock has sparked support for Amendment 10 to the Atlantic Herring Management Plan, aimed at addressing overfishing, minimizing conflicts with recreational anglers, and improving conservation efforts. Public input during scoping overwhelmingly supported stricter management measures, such as time and area closures and gear restrictions to protect herring and related species like river herring and shad, including nearly 900 comments in support of further management actions to defend herring and supported economies. At its June 2024 meeting, the NEFMC published an updated Atlantic herring stock assessment which showed that the herring stock is not successfully rebuilding and continues to be in recruitment failure. Based on these results, the Council recommended that the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is responsible for setting annual catch limits, take immediate action to decrease the 2025 catch by 86 percent, effectively closing the fishery to all but small-scale bait fisheries. This lowered quota will essentially prevent the industrial midwater trawl fleet from operating in 2025, and while it is a severe (albeit short-term) loss for New England fishermen who rely on herring for bait, this move will allow the herring stock to begin recovering, while also decreasing the amount of river herring and shad that are caught as bycatch.
4. We successfully advocated for the reintroduction of the bipartisan Forage Fish Conservation Act
The act was reintroduced in the U.S. House this September by Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Brian Mast (R-FL). The FFCA seeks to improve the management and conservation of federally managed forage species like Atlantic herring and mackerel. These species are crucial to the marine food web, supporting predators such as humpback whales, bluefin tuna, and striped bass. The legislation aims to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act by requiring fishery managers to evaluate the ecological importance of forage fish, account for predator needs, and assess the impacts of new commercial fisheries before opening them. The act also emphasizes the need for science-based conservation measures to prevent overfishing and protect the health of marine ecosystems. As forage fish populations have declined due to overfishing and habitat loss – especially in species like river herring and shad – this legislation will help sustain both the environment and the $138 billion recreational fishing economy, which supports nearly 700,000 jobs nationwide.
Our Forage Fish Conservation Forecast for 2025
Gulf Menhaden
As the Gulf menhaden fishery continues to be shaped by evolving regulations, the TRCP is working toward a transition to ecosystem-based fisheries management, which will involve comprehensive scientific studies. In 2022, with the support of TRCP and partners, the Louisiana Legislature allocated $1 million to fund a bycatch study aimed at understanding the effects of Gulf menhaden harvest. The study aims to explore seasonal bycatch patterns, focusing on how predator (e.g., redfish) interactions with menhaden schools may influence bycatch during critical breeding seasons. The findings, which are expected to be published in early 2025, will provide valuable insights into how industrial fishing affects predator diets, food availability, and mortality, particularly during key times like redfish breeding season in the fall. These results will be instrumental in guiding our efforts in 2025.
Atlantic Menhaden
Next fall, the latest stock assessment updates for Atlantic menhaden will be published. The ASMFC’s Menhaden Management Board will consider updates to the ecological reference points (ERPs), based on the results of two key assessments: a single-species stock assessment, which evaluates the overall health of the menhaden stock, and an ERP stock assessment, which examines how menhaden abundance impacts predator species, particularly striped bass. The TRCP and its partners are pushing for the inclusion of essential data in these assessments, such as natural mortality rates for menhaden, updated predator diet information (especially regarding ospreys in the Chesapeake Bay), and detailed geographic and seasonal data. The goal is to ensure that ERP targets, coastwide quotas, and state allocations are set to maintain adequate menhaden populations to support predator diets. The TRCP will also continue to support the work of the Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Work Group to encourage a balanced management framework that minimizes the localized impacts of menhaden harvest, ultimately contributing to the recovery and sustainability of both menhaden populations and the predators that rely on them.
Atlantic Herring
Work to advocate for the implementation of Amendment 10 to the Atlantic herring fishery will continue throughout next year, with final completion of the amendment expected by the NEFMC in 2026. While the herring fishery’s quota will be significantly reduced over the next few fishing seasons, TRCP and partner efforts to address location and area restrictions and better management of Atlantic herring to minimize user conflicts, contribute to optimum yield, support rebuilding of the herring resource, and develop protections for river herring and shad caught incidentally by the midwater trawl fleet will serve to augment the council’s quota decreases and support the stock rebuilding plan. To achieve optimum yield and a truly sustainable fishery for decades to come, spatial protections such as those defined by Amendment 10 will be critical for New England’s forage base and the predators that feed on them.
Learn More About Forage Fish
Learn more about how forage fish drive sportfishing and underpin healthy marine ecosystems, and stay tuned for more updates about our forage fish conservation efforts in the coming year. As always, feel free to reach out to our team at any time.
Banner image courtesy Joanna Steidle; image of osprey with menhaden courtesy Chesapeake Bay Program; herring image courtesy 16:9Clue
HOW YOU CAN HELP
TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to further our commitment to conservation. $4 from each bag is donated to the TRCP, to help continue our efforts of safeguarding critical habitats, productive hunting grounds, and favorite fishing holes for future generations.
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