June 25, 2021 — A new smartphone app hit the market last week (6-18-21), with the potential to transform the debate over Alaska’s ocean resources.
“Skipper Science” will allow users along Alaska’s entire coastline to contribute observations about changes in fish and animal populations, which can then be collected and quantified as data for Alaska’s science-based resource management.
Anywhere the Alaska Board of Fisheries meets, there is always a certain amount of frustration among some of those who testify, because their years of experience — sometimes over many generations — doesn’t seem to carry much weight in management decisions, which tend to be driven by data.
In Sitka this is particularly acute around herring season, where subsistence harvesters have noted drastic declines in the abundance of the species over many decades, while 40-odd years of data collection by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game suggests everything is okay.
Skipper Science was created for exactly this purpose. Developed by the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, it’s a way for Alaska’s harvesters and managers to at least speak the same language.
“How do we take what has historically been called anecdotal and create some structure around it that is rigorous, has scientific repeatability?” asks Lauren Divine. She’s the Director of Ecosystem Conservation for the Aleut Community of St. Paul, the tribal government of St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea.