Patented fish grinder designed in Alaska.

• Author: Slaten, Russ
• Position: FISHERIES - Alexandra West - Interview

Alexandra West, staff engineer at PND Engineers, Inc. and University Honors College graduate with a civil engineering degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), was awarded US Patent 8,833,682 B2 for designing a water-powered fish carcass grinder aimed at lowering the interactions between fishermen and wildlife.

Inspired by life growing up along the Kenai Peninsula with a father who was the former manager of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, West was raised knowing the concerns of minimizing human and bear interactions during the summer sockeye salmon runs.

Along the major fishing zones of the Kenai and Russian rivers, fishermen discard fish carcasses in the water that end up downriver, attracting bears and eventually leading to dangerous human-bear interactions. State, federal, and tribal entities have tried to encourage fishermen to use hand-powered grinders, chopping disposable fish parts into small pieces, packing the fish whole, and by completely removing fillet tables along the river.

"Fish and Game currently tells anglers to 'stop, chop, and throw,' involving filleting your fish, chopping the carcass into small pieces, and then throwing them into fast-moving water. Chunks still get caught up in eddies and end up on the banks, and it's a tasty treat for bears," West says.

As a senior undergraduate thesis project for UAA's Honors College, West decided on making a disposal system that would grind fish carcasses near the banks of the river using a hydro-powered device connected to a generator.

"It's a floating, paddle wheel device in the river. The angler would fillet the fish on the table and then throw it down a slide that would send the remains through a...