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William R. Koski bkoski@lgl.com

  
 

Senior Enviromental Biologist

Joined LGL in 1973		    
 

Degrees & Diplomas

B.Sc.: Laurentian University, Sudbury (Honours Biology) 1970
M.Sc.: Laurentian University, Sudbury (Biology – Wildlife Ecology) 1974

Research Interests

  • Marine mammal distribution, behavior and life history
  • Wildlife census methods
  • Disturbance to wildlife
  • Fisheries management
  • Waterfowl distribution and census
  • Environmental impact assessment
  • Monitoring and mitigation
  • Aerial photography and photogrammetry
  • Radio telemetry

Capsule Resume

Mr. Koski has more than 35 years experience conducting wildlife studies and has been a field supervisor and senior author of LGL studies since 1973. Mr. Koski is an internationally recognized expert on marine mammals, particularly bowhead whales, and has conducted many studies on whale behavior, affects of sounds on cetacean distribution and behavior, and life history. He has received several invitations to present papers at various meetings, including the International Whaling Commission (IWC) Scientific Committee meetings. He has written or co-authored ~120 reports and 18 publications on marine mammals and another ~100 reports and 6 publications dealing with fisheries, terrestrial wildlife and birds. He developed and refined the vertical aerial survey methodology used to study bowhead whales and he is the curator of the bowhead whale photog­raphy database (BOWPHOT) and the most complete collection of bowhead whale photographs in the world.

Mr. Koski has extensive experience supervising and conducting field studies. He has flown ~5,000 h in fixed wing aircraft and helicopters while conducting wildlife studies. He has supervised or assisted with 15 fish telemetry studies where >6,000 fish of ~20 species have been tagged and tracked using a combination of techniques, primarily for documenting distribution, movements and survival of several fish species in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington State and Brazil. His recent projects include environmental assessments of the effects various types of oil and gas exploration and academic seismic activities on marine mammals and sea turtles. Mr. Koski was the project director of three bowhead whale aerial photogrammetry projects that are being used to make a population estimate, collect life history information, and investigate bowhead whale stock structure.