Andrew (Andy) Seitz

• Google Scholar page
• Andrew Seitz full CV

• Garrett Dunne
• Austin Flanigan
• Marcel Gietzmann-Sanders
• Kevin Siwicke
• Joseph Spencer
• Concepcion Melovidov
• Sabrina Garcia
• Mary Hostetter
• Charlotte Levy
• Andrew Rothenberger
• Wyatt Snodgrass
• Johnna Elkins

I was raised in the wonderful town of North Yarmouth, Maine, where I developed my fascination with fish. When young, I spent innumerable hours searching for brook trout in tiny streams and chasing bluefish and striped bass in Maine’s coastal waters. During my summers in high school and college at Cornell University, I was fortunate enough to work on a charter fishing boat, from which we pursued a variety of fishes, including the mighty bluefin tuna. After graduating from college, I was able to combine my addiction for tuna fishing and my interest in biology at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where I worked at the Tuna Research and Conservation Center. My electronic tagging fieldwork skills led me to Alaska, where I helped start a halibut tagging project, which turned into my graduate school project at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. After completing my graduate degree, I worked as fisheries course instructor and now as a faculty member at UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. When not working, I enjoy floating rivers, hiking, hunting, and raising poultry, all with my family.

• Fish behavior
• Fish migration
• Behavioral ecology
• Electronic tagging
• Marine and river energy

My research focuses on several aspects of applied fish ecology and biology. Generally, my research team, collaborators, and I seek to understand the behavior, life history, migration patterns and population structure of a variety of freshwater and marine fishes, ranging from salmon smolts to large, highly mobile species such as king salmon and halibut. With this understanding, we seek to answer pressing questions related to the management and conservation of fishes that are intensively harvested, imperiled and/or subject to human-induced impacts in their environment. Studying these fishes is often challenging because of their relative inaccessibility. To overcome these challenges, I have used a variety of techniques ranging from traditional net sampling in rivers to cutting-edge technology in the oceans. The majority of the research conducted by my team involves novel applications of electronic tags and analyses of their data.

• Behavior, migration and mortality of large Chinook salmon in the Pacific Ocean
• Migration and behavior of steelhead in the Pacific Ocean
• Behavior of fishes around hydrokinetic turbines
• Nearshore movement and behavior of Chinook salmon smolts in Cook Inlet
• Temperature-dependent growth in situ: Age-0 Coho salmon within a sub-Arctic feeding mosaic
• Pacific Cod movement, stock structure and habitat use in the Gulf of Alaska
• Species distribution models to predict overlap between Chinook salmon and the pollock fishing fleet in the Bering Sea
• Movements and distribution of snow crab in the Eastern Bering Sea
• Seaward migration and overwintering habits of Dolly Varden in northwestern Alaska analyzed using otolith microchemistry
• Developing improved stock assessments of Pacific Sleeper Shark and Pacific Spiny Dogfish in Alaska
• Movement patterns of juvenile and adult sablefish in Alaska
• Spatial dynamics and stock structure of Pacific Halibut in the Northern Bering Sea
• Demonstrating a standardized Individual Based Model methodology using Chinook Salmon satellite tag data from the Gulf of Alaska
• Community-based monitoring for holistic relationships with land and water

• American Fisheries Society
• Alaska Hydrokinetic Energy Research Center
• Pacific Marine Energy Center