April 8, 2024 — Alaskan waters are a critical fishery for salmon. Complex marine food webs underlie and sustain this fishery, and scientists want to know how climate change is reshaping them. But finding samples from the past isn’t easy.
“We have to really open our minds and get creative about what can act as an ecological data source,” said Natalie Mastick, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University.
March 26, 2024 — Scientists have many ways to track fish populations – but they usually require seeing the fish. Now, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are refining a method to collect data about what fish were present in an area – up to two days after those fish have moved on.
Diana Baetscher is a research geneticist at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau. She said that when fish swim, they shed scales, slime, and other tiny fragments into the water. Those fragments contain DNA – and they can provide a breadcrumb trail for scientists looking to learn about fish populations.
“eDNA is environmental DNA,” Baetscher said. ” It’s sort of a really simple concept. At its heart, it’s the fact that all organisms shed DNA or genetic material into the environment, and that can be water or air or soil.”
February 22, 2024 — Unlike their relatives in the Lower 48, the five types of Alaska salmon (king, chum, pink, sockeye and silver) are not officially endangered. However, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the Legislature in her annual address that kings are edging closer and the Yukon and Kuskokwim chum run declines are concerning. To keep our salmon off the endangered species list we must take action. Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA) will provide important funding for Alaska’s wildlife action plan.
Under ice in lakes and creeks, salmon hatchlings will emerge soon. The egg sac the alevin emerges from will still be a bulge on the tiny fish’s belly and will nourish its growth in its first few weeks. Staying close to the rocky creek bottom, the hatchling grows into its fry phase as the ice melts. Plentiful plankton and larvae in the water provide the nutrients needed to grow rapidly. Submerged logs and rocks offer shelter from predators including fish, bald eagles and migratory birds. Pink and chum heed the primal signal to enter the ocean almost right away. Kings reside in freshwater for about a year before migrating. Sockeye and silver stay in freshwater longest, a couple years, before smolting and departing on their epic migration.
February 22, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase about 50 million pounds of Alaska seafood to use in national food and nutrition-assistance programs, state officials said on Tuesday.
The seafood purchase is to benefit needy children and adults and school lunches, said the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which announced the department’s plans. The purchases are authorized through a portion of federal law called Section 32, which allows the department to buy surplus food products, and through the department’s Commodity Credit Corp., a government entity created to help stabilize agricultural income and prices.
In all, the Department of Agriculture has put bids on 1.4 million cases of pink salmon, 300,000 cases of sockeye salmon and 15 million pounds of pollock fish sticks and fillets, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute said. Each case of salmon holds 24 cans, with most cans holding 14.75 ounces but some holding 7.5 ounces.