April 13, 2021 — U.S. fishermen based in Kodiak, Alaska, have reported aggressive interactions with Russian navy ships and fighter jets while fishing in American waters. NBC News’ Kevin Tibbles speaks to one fisherman about fishing near Russian waters and encountering foreign naval war games.
As halibut decline, Alaska Native fishers square off against industrial fleets
April 9, 2021 — Each year in mid-June, Father John, dressed in long black robes, heads to the small boat harbor on St. Paul, a tiny island of 500 souls in the middle of the Bering Sea. It’s the start of the fishing season, and the Blessing of the Fleet is a community affair, an opportunity to give best wishes to the fishermen heading out into the unforgiving northern waters in search of halibut.
The island’s small, independent fishing fleet of only 15 vessels needs all the help it can get: Far offshore, factory trawlers targeting other fish species net and chuck overboard as waste millions of pounds of the valuable fish each year. “They’re killing our halibut,” says St. Paul fisherman Myron Melovidov, who fishes with his grown sons.
Pacific halibut are flat and bottom dwelling, and can weigh hundreds of pounds. About 20 years ago, the population started taking a dive, and St. Paul fishermen—as well as halibut fishermen across Alaska—faced increasing cuts in their harvest limits.
Climate Change Raises Risk of Prey Mismatch for Young Cod in Alaska
April 9, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
For a young Pacific cod, first feeding is a life-or-death moment. Cod larva are nourished by a yolk sac after they hatch. Once the yolk sac is depleted, they must find food within days in order to survive. If there is no prey available during that critical window for first feeding, young fish face starvation.
Warming Alaska waters are increasing the risk of prey mismatch and starvation for cod larvae, a new study finds.
NOAA Fisheries scientists collaborated with our partners to look at how temperature shifts affected first feeding Pacific cod larvae in two large ecosystems: the southeast Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The models made predictions for 1998–2019, a period that encompassed warm and cool years, including a series of extreme heatwave events beginning in 2014.
“Warming can increase the metabolic demands of fish and shift the timing of their food production. So you have temperature unravelling the system, moving food around. And you have fish needing food now. When mismatched prey timing and increased metabolic demand line up, it can be pretty disastrous,” said Ben Laurel, NOAA Fisheries scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, who led the study. “The better we can understand and predict these effects, the more effectively we can manage them now and in the future.”
Alaska cod: Gulf cod stocks creep back, but Bering and Aleutian still down
April 5, 2021 — Pacific cod stocks have begun to rebound in the Gulf of Alaska, but the TAC for 2021 remains low at 17,321 metric tons. Last year managers curtailed the fishery in federally managed waters after stock assessments put the biomass near the bottom of the threshold for conducting the fishery.
Though the recruitment of younger cod and the uncaught fish from last year have added to the abundance in most recent assessments, full recovery of the stock could take years. The warm-water blob of 2014 has been blamed for the crash.
The warming waters began in 2013 and precipitated a 79 percent decline in the stocks. Prevalent theories suggest that warmer waters raise the metabolic rates for the young cod. At the same time the forage species for young cod appeared to have higher concentrations of protein and lower concentrations of fat. More recent studies determined that the eggs of cod survive in a narrow range of temperature (3 to 6 degrees C, or 37.4 to 42.8 degrees F).
Stocks also continue to decline in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands harvest areas. The 2021 TAC for the Bering Sea has been set at 111,380 metric tons with a TAC of 13,796 metric tons for the Aleutian Islands.
The 2020 TACs for the respective areas had been set at 141,799 metric tons and 14,214 metric tons.
Research Finds Climate Change Impacts Young Cod in Alaska
April 2, 2021 — NOAA Fisheries highlighted a new study that indicates warming waters in Alaska are increasing the likelihood of prey mismatch and starvation for Pacific cod larvae.
The study was a collaboration between NOAA Fisheries scientists and partners to assess how temperatures impacted first feeding Pacific cod larvae in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska through 1998-2019.
Climate Change Raises Risk of Prey Mismatch for Young Cod in Alaska
March 30, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
For a young Pacific cod, first feeding is a life-or-death moment. Cod larva are nourished by a yolk sac after they hatch. Once the yolk sac is depleted, they must find food within days in order to survive. If there is no prey available during that critical window for first feeding, young fish face starvation.
Warming Alaska waters are increasing the risk of prey mismatch and starvation for cod larvae, a new study finds.
NOAA Fisheries scientists collaborated with our partners to look at how temperature shifts affected first feeding Pacific cod larvae in two large ecosystems: the southeast Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The models made predictions for 1998–2019, a period that encompassed warm and cool years, including a series of extreme heatwave events beginning in 2014.
“Warming can increase the metabolic demands of fish and shift the timing of their food production. So you have temperature unravelling the system, moving food around. And you have fish needing food now. When mismatched prey timing and increased metabolic demand line up, it can be pretty disastrous,” said Ben Laurel, NOAA Fisheries scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, who led the study. “The better we can understand and predict these effects, the more effectively we can manage them now and in the future.”
By plane, boat and man basket, COVID-19 vaccines flow to Alaska’s Aleutian seafood workers
March 30, 2021 — Thousands of Alaska seafood workers are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 three months after outbreaks swept through Aleutian plants, shuttering some just as the lucrative Bering Sea fishing season began.
The effort is taking different forms, ranging from clinics in Sand Point to a one-day mass event in the Unalaska gym and aboard Dutch Harbor boats that vaccinated about 1,500 plant workers and deep-sea fishermen.
Probably the most only-in-Alaska method involved Eastern Aleutian Tribes community health aide Joe McMillan, who on Thursday clambered into a small man basket suspended in the air to swing aboard two large processing vessels and vaccinate more than a hundred people on each.
The doses now going into seafood worker arms are coming from a federal allocation provided to Eastern Aleutian Tribes rather than from state supplies of vaccine.
They came via a Biden administration plan to expand vaccine availability to community health centers in underserved communities. The Eastern Aleutian Tribes is one of just two tribal entities in Alaska participating in that program as of March 22.
The tribal health organization has probably given out 2,500 shots in the past week and 4,000 since January, according to CEO Paul Mueller, who described one chartered flight Wednesday to deliver food and vaccine that skipped from Nelson Lagoon to Cold Bay, False Pass, Sand Point, Dutch Harbor and King Cove.
ALASKA: With Fishing Slowed By Pandemic, Bering Sea Crabbers Push For Extended Season
March 29, 2021 — A group of Bering Sea crabbers say the pandemic has slowed their fishing season, and they want more time to catch their quota before the state shuts down their season next week.
But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has denied their request for an extension, citing low population numbers and an upcoming mating season.
For the few boats fishing bairdi crab this year, there could be a lot at stake if they don’t have time to catch their full quota.
“I’m thinking they don’t quite understand what we’re going through out here,” said Oystein Lone, captain of the 98-foot crab boat Pacific Sounder, which is based out of Dutch Harbor.
Until recently, Lone’s been fishing in the Bering Sea for snow crab, also known as opilio. But right now, he and his five-person crew have switched to fishing for a different type of crab called bairdi, which is also known as tanner crab.
Both bairdi and snow crab seasons open in October. But Lone recently switched to fishing for bairdi because that season is nearly over — even though as of Wednesday, only 46% of the total quota had been caught.
ALASKA: Bering Sea Island’s Gas Shortage Forces Crabbers South To Refuel, Disrupting Their Fishing
March 22, 2021 — The COVID-19 pandemic has already disrupted Alaska’s winter Bering Sea fishing seasons, closing plants and adding quarantine-related complications for crews.
Now, some boats are contending with a shortage of fuel at a key island port, leaving them with less time to catch their quota.
The Bering Sea community of St. Paul, one of the Pribilof Islands, announced the gas ration late last month after bad weather canceled the arrival of a fuel barge, and fishermen say it’s forcing them into days-long detours for refueling.
“I seem to remember we had some rations, years back, but it was nothing like this,” Oystein Lone, the captain of a 98-foot crab boat, said in an interview over a satellite phone.
Water Clarity Study Sheds Light on Bering Sea Change
March 18, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
In 2004, Alaska Fisheries Science Center biologists began attaching light sensors to Bering Sea survey bottom trawls to evaluate the effects of light on fish catchability. Fifteen years later, researchers looked at this unique dataset in a new light to reveal much more about the dynamic Bering Sea ecosystem.
NOAA Fisheries scientists collaborated with our partners to develop an automated process to translate these data into the first long time series of subsurface water clarity for the eastern Bering Sea.
“Until now, there was very little long term information on subsurface water clarity in the Bering Sea,” said Sean Rohan, the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center biologist who led the study. “Working with the annual surveys provided unprecedented spatial coverage and resolution over a span of 15 years.”
Their approach provides a tool that expands possibilities for research in other regions. Their findings reveal patterns and trends in water clarity over depth and time that enhance our understanding of recent and future changes in the Bering Sea.
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