Welcome to the Conference website that showcases the 21th Alaska Bird Conference to be held from 8-10 December 2026 at The Marriott Anchorage Downtown Hotel, Alaska.
The conference is being organized by multiple people from the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Management Division; Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Threatened, Endangered, and Diversity Program and Waterfowl Research and Management Program; ABR Inc., Environmental Research & Services; University of Alaska Fairbanks – Institute of Arctic Biology and Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit; Alaska Songbird Institute, and Prince William Sound Science Center.
Please visit our sponsors page to see how these and other partners are contributing funding, expertise, and ideas to help make this meeting possible.
The first Alaska Bird Conference was held in Anchorage in 1985. It emerged from a widely recognized need for better information sharing among government agencies, universities, non‑government organizations, and private-sector partners working with Alaska’s diverse and abundant bird populations. Since then, the conference has been held approximately every two years.
This year marks the 21st Alaska Bird Conference. The conference typically attracts between 150 and 200 participants who share their latest findings and new initiatives. By design, it maintains a familiar and welcoming atmosphere—one that brings new students and ornithologists into the community while providing a much‑anticipated gathering for everyone who works with and cares about Alaska’s birds.
This year’s theme Next Steps for Birds focuses on the major changes affecting bird populations and the ways we monitor them, emphasizing both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Conference sessions—including plenaries, talks, posters, and group discussions—will explore four key areas: tracking the distribution and abundance of Alaska’s birds, improving conditions on their wintering grounds, understanding recent shifts in agency funding and priorities, and enhancing public outreach on bird status. Each day will begin with a plenary and continue with shorter presentations and a workshop aimed at developing concrete, actionable “next steps” for researchers, agencies, and the public. Outcomes will be synthesized across themes and shared after the conference, with the potential to be summarized in a publishable paper.
Our logo is based on the theme of “Next Steps for Birds” and features multiple species that occur in Alaska. The drawing was created by Julia Ditto (juliaditto.com), an Anchorage-based science illustrator and artist with a background in ecology and climate science. Her illustrations have been published in Scientific American, Smithsonian, and Nature, among other places. Julia grew up in Anchorage and graduated from Alaska Pacific University with a BS in Environmental Science and a minor in Outdoor Studies. Her senior thesis joined wilderness travel, field science, and art by exploring techniques in science illustration during her expeditions across the Brooks Range (2019-2021). In 2023, she earned a Graduate Certificate in Science Illustration at California State University Monterey Bay.
