Ethan Brown

Marine Mammal Observer, Fisheries Observer

Ethan's career  began at age 15 when he started guiding river trips on the Shenandoah River through Harpers Ferry National Park. He did this through his college years, going on to guide rivers in Canada, Colorado and Alaska.

He nervously led the first commercially guided trip down the Bloodvein River in Manitoba in 1985, scouting it by looking out the window of the floatplane. After college he tried and failed to become Woody Guthrie by riding freight trains and playing banjos.

In 1989 he went  to work on a crab vessel fishing Russian waters.  He became a Alaska Fish and Game shellfish observer in 1991 and worked the Bering Sea for 3 years.

When off the boats he started guided river and sea kayaking trips throughout Alaska.

He started an operation that guided rafting trips thru ANWR to see the migration of the Porcupine caribou herd and working as a naturalist on cruises around Southeast Alaska with its orcas, lunge feeding humpbacks, rafts of sea otters and sea lion colonies. At this job he became the first naturalist to get a standing ovation after a talk on the history of the sea otter. He also set up remote camps and worked as a camp medic for sea kayak and engineering companies.

His favourite job was as a landing craft captain and brown bear viewing guide in Katmai National Park; the bears would often walk right up to the boat as it was beached. He did short term contracts on several large oil spill cleanups and on oil spill response vessels in the Arctic Ocean as well as soil decontamination and hazmat cleanup projects on military bases.

.As a merchant seaman he worked river tugs that went up the coast and rivers of Alaska bringing supplies and fuel to isolated Eskimo villages. The native views of conservation, land use and the human role rounded out the scientific approach in subtle ways that he appreciates with  gratitude.

In 2003 Ethan started working as a a fishery observer again. The excellent Woods Hole training included marine mammal/bird/turtle ID, marine mammal necropsies, turtle resuscitation, and other useful input.

He observed boats up and down the East Coast and became Lead Observer/Coordinator for a special use longline research project on Cape Cod. It was there he amazed everyone by working in an office for short periods and even learned to use cell phones and laptops.

With the research vessel RV Casitas he worked for 2 years in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands on a marine debris project that removed hundred of tons of lost fishing gear out of prime Albatross, Monk Seal, Spinner Dolphin, and Green Turtle coral reef/atoll habitat.   On this same vessel he helped with the placement and repair of tsunami warning buoys in the North Pacific.

He then started working on dredges as a  Marine Endangered Species Observer, reporting mammal sightings and sea turtle mortalities. This led to work as an MMO and Lead MMO in the Gulf of Mexico for 2 years, where he learned a lot about teamwork and sperm whales.

He currently works as a international  transhipment observer on Japanese ships offshore West Africa, documenting the activities of the Atlantic tuna fleet and taking photos to use in future training courses for the fledgling program.

He also plays mandolin in blues and bluegrass bands during the short periods he stays on land.

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