Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Seagrant launches Alaska Oyster Voyage interactive map and logging tool to encourage oyster consumption

September 5, 2026 — University of Alaska Fairbanks-based Alaska Sea Grant launched the Alaska Oyster Voyage this summer, encouraging patrons to both taste and log different oysters across the state from varying vendors.

The program is in partnership with the Alaska Shellfish Growers Association. The two organizations created a digital “Alaska Oyster Trail” that’s interactive for users to navigate guided oyster farm tours, raw bars, and oyster vendors – similar to projects done in Maine and North Carolina.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: AOOS: Home of Alaska ocean data

September 3, 2026 — Bordered by the Pacific and Arctic oceans and the Bering Sea, Alaska is home to the richest fisheries in the world, and the source of half the wild fisheries harvest in the U.S.

Managing the fisheries of the 900,000 square mile EEZ, or exclusive economic zone, surrounding the state effectively requires massive amounts of data that are often collected by different entities, public and private, using different methods. Harvesting the bounty safely and economically also relies on information about weather, waves, ice conditions, stock migration patterns, and more.

To gather and share the data being collected to support Alaska’s marine economic and subsistence activities, the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) was founded in 2003 and started operating in 2004 as one of the regional hubs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) national Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). IOOS was formally established in 2007 and continues to expand in its role as an information portal on many fronts.

“It’s a lot to manage,” says AOOS’ executive director, Sheyna Wisdom. “If you look at California, for example, they have two regional hubs, and they’re both on the Pacific. Ours are very spread out, and if you look at the Arctic, it doesn’t have the same information needs as Southeast.”

Besides marine traffic, water quality, and other projects, much of the AOOS budget of over $4 million goes into funding research that supports fisheries and coastal communities that depend on fisheries.

“What we do is collect information and make sure it is available to the people who need it,” says Wisdom. “With the Alaska Sea Grant, we co-host the bi-monthly Alaska Marine Policy Forum where the public gets updates on marine policy issues. We also facilitate several collaboration networks to connect people across Alaska, such as the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network or the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network. We take our role as a connector very seriously.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Sea Grant workshops train the future of the fisheries industry

May 4, 2026 — In an era when the commercial fisheries industry is growing more concerned about the graying of the fleet, Alaska Sea Grant workshops are attracting a new generation of harvesters.

“Our beginning commercial fisherman training encompasses a lot of training programs,” said Gabe Dunham, Marine Advisory Program (MAP) leader and fisheries specialist for Alaska Sea Grant in Juneau. “The skipper apprenticeship program is taught in Bristol Bay to help youths there become skippers,” he said.

A crew training workshop for late middle school and high school students in Hoonah, on the northeastern shore of Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska, was offered in April in collaboration with the Hoonah Indian Association, as was one in Metlakatla, an Indian reserve within Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage. Another is scheduled for May 7, plus more crew training on June 8 in Petersburg, on the northern tip of Mitkof Island, also within the Inside Passage.

MAP instructors offer a combination of lectures and skills training ranging from knot tying and line splicing to mechanical skills. Participants learn how to make an electrical connection, tighten nuts and bolts, and identify four different chemicals commonly found on fishing vessels. A navigation activity teaches U.S. Coast Guard rules of the road for those operating on coastal waters.

The following was released by the National Fishermen

ALASKA: ‘Explosion’ of invasive European green crabs reported in Southeast Alaska

Noember 3, 2025 — When a young Sealaska intern walking a beach in July 2022 found the first evidence of European green crab presence in Alaska — a discarded shell on a beach on Annette Island in the state’s far southeast corner — it was an ominous sign about the invasive species’ northward spread.

Since then, the Metlakatla Indian Community, the tribe based on Annette Island, and its partners, which include Alaska Sea Grant, have found not just more shells, but live invasive crabs. Discoveries numbered just a handful at first, then dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.

This year, the Metlakatla tribe’s team has trapped more than 40,000 of them on and around Annette Island, a representative said.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

Volunteers on watch for invasive crab that could threaten Southeast Alaska fisheries

July 19, 2021 — The European green crab might be small, but it can destroy vital habitats for animals all along the food chain. It’s already costing New England shellfisheries million of dollars.

In July 2020, green crab were found in Haida Gwaii, the closest they’ve ever been to Alaska. With the help of volunteers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game hopes to stay one step ahead of the invasive species.

At low tide at Sandy Beach in Petersburg, Sunny Rice and a group of volunteers walked toward a crab trap — on the lookout for European green crab.

Green crab are small but mighty, measuring around 3 or 4 inches wide. Their shells are a dark, greenish-brown shell with yellow spots, with five triangular points on either side of the eyes.

To check whether the crabs have made it this far north, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has asked volunteer groups to set up traps all over Southeast. Rice is with the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program and wanted to get involved. She and a group of high school students with the Petersburg Indian Association’s natural resource management program set six traps at Sandy Beach and two at Hammer Slough.

Read the full story at KTOO

Supporting small-scale fisheries with seafood direct marketing

January 13, 2021 — For commercial fishing enterprises and other seafood businesses, alternative marketing arrangements, such as direct sales to consumers, can be a great way to increase sales or diversify a customer base.

Sea Grant extension personnel, who have served as trusted advisors to the US fishing industry for decades, have developed several go-to information sources for fishermen interested in alternative marketing. These include Alaska Sea Grant’s Fishermen’s Direct Marketing Manual first published in 1997 and California Sea Grant’s Market Your Catch website.

A new report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) now brings this expertise to a global audience. The report includes case studies from leading fisheries experts around the world to address recommendations contained in FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines to Secure Small-Scale Fisheries. The guidelines, published in 2015, aim to support sustainable small-scale fisheries as an important part of the food system, end hunger and poverty, and strengthen human rights.

California Sea Grant and Alaska Sea Grant contributed a case study to the report highlighting the approach Sea Grant extension personnel take in working with fishing communities, and the information products they have created since the mid 1990s.

Read the full story at Medium

Alaska Sea Grant Deadline for Fellowship Program is Tomorrow

February 14, 2020 — The Alaska Sea Grant Program wants to remind soon-to-graduate or recently finished graduate students interested in the science and policy that applications for their 2020 state fellowship program must be in by tomorrow.

Six positions are available — Alaska Sea Grant Mariculture Fellow, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region, National Park Service, North Pacific Fishery Management Council, and the United States Geological Survey.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Program aims to provide Alaska Native and rural students with opportunities at NOAA

September 13, 2019 — The following was released by the University of Alaska Fairbanks:

Alaska Sea Grant is partnering with NOAA Fisheries to provide opportunities to Alaska Native and rural students at the federal agency. The goal is to increase their representation in marine-related professions at NOAA Fisheries, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration formerly known as the National Marine Fisheries Service.

During summer 2019, NOAA Fisheries and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which houses Alaska Sea Grant, launched a marine education and workforce development program that brought five undergraduate students to the UAF campus for a two-week course run by Vladimir Alexeev, research professor at the International Arctic Research Center. It’s called the Partnership in Education Program Alaska. The program was developed by policy analysts Sorina Stalla and Megan Hillgartner and by UAF faculty member Alexeev.

This summer’s curriculum focused on marine sciences and the drivers of Arctic change, climatology, oceanography, marine resource management and policy, law, subsistence use and perspectives, hydrology, climate modeling, permafrost, interior wildfires, meteorology, atmospheric science and more. Following their course work and a trip to the Toolik Field Station on the North Slope, students applied their knowledge and completed internships with NOAA’s regional Alaska office and its Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau.

Read the full release here

Seaweed Farmers in Alaska Gear Up for Large Haul

May 29, 2019 — The largest commercial harvest of seaweed in Alaska is taking place this month.

Blue Evolution, a California-based company that cultivates, harvests and distributes Alaska-grown seaweed, is expected to haul in up to 200,000 pounds from waters near Kodiak Island within the next two weeks. Previous harvests have been a fraction of that size, but, as the mariculture industry grows in Alaska, Blue Evolution is also expanding.

Working with local resident farmers, the company produces seed from wild seaweed plants and grows them into kelp starts in an onshore hatchery at the federal government’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center Kodiak Laboratory. Blue Evolution then supplies seeded string to local farmers who plant them onto longlines in late fall, cultivate their crops during winter and harvest in spring.

The company is collaborating with the University of Alaska and Alaska Sea Grant on seaweed research aimed at developing cost-effective cultivation methods for several native species. Seaweed farming is a growing, multibillion-dollar industry worldwide and presents a new economic opportunity for coastal Alaska.

“It suits my family because we set gillnet for salmon during the summer and supplement our income with seaweed farming during winter,” said Lexa Meyer, who co-owns and operates Kodiak Kelp Co. with her husband.

Read the full story at Alaska Native News

Heather Brandon to Lead Alaska Sea Grant

August 15, 2018 — The University of Alaska Fairbanks has chosen Heather Brandon as Alaska Sea Grant’s new director.

Brandon is an environmental policy leader with experience in fisheries issues on a broad geographic scale, ranging from Alaska to the Arctic and Russian Far East. The Juneau resident was selected after a competitive national search.

“I am very pleased that Heather will take the helm at Alaska Sea Grant,” said Bradley Moran, dean of the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. “Heather has a solid working knowledge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s programs, including Sea Grant, and brings a wealth of experience that will be an asset to the Alaska Sea Grant program.”

Before joining Alaska Sea Grant, Brandon was a foreign affairs specialist for NOAA’s Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection. Brandon has also worked for World Wildlife Fund, Juneau Economic Development Council, Pacific Fishery Management Council, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and served on the U.S. Department of Commerce Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee. She has a master’s degree in marine affairs from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Oregon.

Read the full story at Alaska Business Monthly