February 17, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council heard a draft plan for addressing climate change in the eastern Bering Sea earlier this month.
The plan was put together by scientists at the Seattle-based Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which is part of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Mike Sigler, program leader for the habitat and ecological processes research program at the science center, said the plan pulls together work scientists there are already doing, and research they’d like to undertake.
“We have a clear understanding of species like walleye Pollock, northern rock sole, red king crab, what will happen to them, and we can make quantitative forecasts of where they’re going. They’re not completely certain, but we have some good ideas of ecological processes,” Sigler said. “But then, we don’t have such good understanding for other species, like yellowfin sole, and we’re making a qualitative assessment of their vulnerability to climate.”
Eventually, the group wants to provide fisheries managers, like the North Pacific council, with a better look at what might be coming in 10 years – or even farther down the road. One of the first parts of the plan is just putting together that qualitative assessment for more than a dozen species, which he expects to happen this year.