2026 Isleib Award
The Isleib Award recognizes “outstanding contributions to bird conservation in Alaska”
and has been presented at each Alaska Bird Conference since 1994.
The award winner for 2026 will be announced in December 2026.
Nominations are due 16 October 2026. Please follow the Pete Isleib Award Nomination Instructions.
About Pete Isleib
M.E. “Pete” Isleib took his passion for birds to scientific and recreational heights. He moved to Alaska in the early 1960s and made his living as a commercial fisherman.
Pete was known for his extraordinary ornithological skills and conservation work in Alaska. His book “Birds of the North Gulf Coast-Prince William Sound Region, Alaska,” co-authored with Brina Kessel, provided some of the earliest data on avifauna of this area.
Pete Isleib died in an accident while refitting his fishing vessel in Naknek, Alaska, in 1993.
Past Recipients
- Stan Senner (1994)
- G. Vernon Byrd (1997)
- Calvin Lensink (1998)
- Jim King (2000)
- Dan Gibson (2002)
- Brina Kessel (2004)
- Bruce Conant and John “Jack” Hodges Team (2006)
- Robert Gill (2008)
- Dirk Derksen (2010)
- Russ Oates (2012)
- Brian McCaffery (2014)
- Robert J. Ritchie (2016)
- Colleen Handel (2019)
- Margaret Petersen (2021)
- Liliana Coelho Naves (2023)