OAI’s Alan Rahi was recently recognized by the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region (WCR) Regional Administrator for his work on the southern resident killer whale communications effort (as recently seen in the national news).

Alan works with scientific and management NMFS staff to develop multimedia content for web and social media on NOAA Fisheries WCR science, management, and conservation work. Alan also participated in setting up and promoting the meetings, debriefing and suggesting changes between the meetings, and performing analysis on the comments and FB/Twitter data from the live stream.

With Alan and the rest of the teams participation the social media presence for the WCR has vaulted into the forefront of the discussions around the critically endangered Southern Residents and the overall ecology of the Puget Sound. The WCR FaceBook page alone has seen growth of 50% since August 2018.