Saving Seafood

North Pacific council to study new options to reduce bottom trawling

June 17, 2026 — Federal fisheries managers plan to consider new options in 2027 to reduce bottom contact of pelagic trawl gear on red king crab populations in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

Members of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council assigned council staff during their June meeting in Vancouver, Wash., to develop a discussion paper on potential regulatory measures to reduce bottom contact of pelagic trawl gear in areas currently closed to non-pelagic trawl gear.

The goal is to reduce the uncertainty associated with unobserved crab mortality and to improve existing fishing practices, in light of depressed red king crab populations and changing ecosystems, council staff said.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Tagged and Tracked: Mapping the Journeys of Pacific Cod in the Bering Sea

June 16, 2026 — Pacific cod support Alaska’s second largest groundfish fishery and play a critical role in the Bering Sea ecosystem. In recent decades—particularly from 2017 to 2019—the Bering Sea experienced unusually warm temperatures and minimal sea ice. These conditions appear to have shifted Pacific cod distributions farther north compared to colder years, raising questions about long-term changes in population distribution and demographic structure.

Understanding a Shifting Species

In response to industry concerns and scientific data needs to support management, a research team launched a satellite tagging study in 2019. Led by Dr. Susanne McDermott—the Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl survey lead—the team included fisheries biologists Julie Nielsen, Kimberly Rand, and many others. McDermott recalled, “There was tremendous anxiety over what’s going on. Why are these fish in different places? Is this something that’s changing on a population level? Is this just the same population moving into different areas?”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

ALASKA: Algal toxins emerge as a new concern in Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea

June 1, 2026 — For countless generations, people of the Bering Strait region have relied on the food they harvest from the sea without worrying about harmful algal blooms that threaten seafood eaters in warmer and more southern latitudes.

Now, as the Northern Bering Sea undergoes cascading effects of a warming climate, algal risks pose a new challenge.

The change has been dramatic.

And it has prompted a change in the way Nome youth grow up learning about collecting food from the waters around their home. In early April, Nome high school students traveled to Bethel with their science teacher, where they presented their research at the Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference held by Alaska Sea Grant.

Algal toxins were present, at very low but detectable levels, in fish they eat.

Sophomore Audrey Bruner-Alvanna was among the group of student researchers. She said young people are concerned about algal blooms, which proliferate in warmer conditions, and their potential effects on wild food resources.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

NOAA researchers use genetic tools to improve understanding of Alaska’s Pacific cod stocks

May 1, 2026 — NOAA researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska BioMap have been working on identifying genetic stocks of Pacific cod in Alaska to build a cost-effective genetic database full of assessments.

Breaking the population into four stocks – Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Pacific Coast – the assessment found that none of the four have been or are subject to overfishing threats, as measured by estimating the spawning biomass, or the number of females able to reproduce, according to a release by NOAA.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Arctic sea hits record low, while Bering Sea ice surges

April 8, 2026 — While Arctic sea ice reached its lowest seasonal peak on March 15, conditions in the Bering Sea told a very different story this winter– with ice expanding farther south than fishermen have seen in more than a decade.

According to reporting from KMXT, sea ice in the eastern Bering Sea continued growing for another week after the Arctic-wide peak, ultimately reaching its greatest extent since 2013. Ice pushed south past Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula, extending to Cold Bay, Unimak Island, and even the Pribilof Islands

“The Bering Sea is the only place in the Arctic where sea ice is above normal,” Rick Thoman said to KMXT. “To our west, in the Sea of Okhotsk, so west of Kamchatka, it’s the lowest sea ice extent of record [as of March 19].”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

“Remarkable” sea ice conditions in Bering Sea this winter as Arctic-wide sea ice hits record low

April 6, 2026 — Scientists say sea ice in the Arctic hit its seasonal peak on March 15 – and it was the lowest peak on record. That probably comes as a surprise for fishermen who work the Bering Sea, where sea ice kept expanding for another week and hit its highest peak since 2013, extending south all the way to parts of the Aleutian Islands.

Sea ice last month completely froze over Bristol Bay and the north end of the Alaska Peninsula, past Nelson Lagoon. It reached Cold Bay, Unimak Island – even the Pribilof Islands.

“The Bering Sea is the only place in the Arctic where sea ice is above normal,” Rick Thoman said. “To our west, in the Sea of Okhotsk, so west of Kamchatka, it’s the lowest sea ice extent of record [as of March 19].”

Thoman, a climatologist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness, said there’s been a persistent series of high-pressure storms that have caused significant sea ice growth in the eastern Bering Sea by holding colder air in that area this winter. But that has also prevented sea ice from forming west of the International Date Line in Russian waters.

“That big high pressure over the Bering Sea has steered many storms and their south winds into the Sea of Okhotsk,” Thoman said. “They just have not been able to form much sea ice.”

Read the full article at KMXT

ALASKA: As waters around Alaska warm, algal toxins are turning up in new places in the food web

March 27, 2026 — Over the past two summers, a pair of remote and treeless volcanic islands in the eastern Bering Sea broadcast signals of climate change danger in the marine ecosystem that feeds Alaska residents and supports much of the state’s economy.

Tribal employees monitoring St. Paul Island’s beaches came across 10 dead but seemingly well-fed northern fur seals in August of 2024, their bodies lying amid piles of dead fish and birds.

Testing revealed that the seals had been killed by an algal toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning. It was the first ever conclusive case of marine mammals killed by saxitoxin, the algal toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.

The people living on St. Paul, numbering about 400, most of them Unangax, are highly dependent on the marine environment for their food. They are aware of the algal toxins that pose risks of paralytic shellfish poisoning in faraway Southeast Alaska. But seal deaths from algal toxin poisoning on their own island came as a big surprise to local people, said Aaron Lestenkof, who is part of the tribe’s Indigenous Sentinels Network.

“It never occurred to us that it may happen to our marine mammals here,” Lestenkof said. “I guess it was just a matter of time.”

The St. Paul die-off was not a one-time incident. In August of 2025, tribal residents found 21 dead fur seals on a beach at St. George Island, a sister island of St. Paul. Along with the seals were two dead fin whales, a dead sea lion and several dead seabirds.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

NPFMC rejects hard cap on Western Alaska chum salmon bycatch, but approves corridor closure to allow fish passage

February 17, 2026 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) has once again rejected the salmon sector’s demands for hard caps on chum bycatch caught by pollock trawlers in the Bering Sea, though the body did approve some limits intended to reduce bycatch.

Alaska’s salmon sector has long sought stricter limits on the amount of chum salmon commercial pollock trawlers can take as bycatch, claiming that the industrial fishing activity hurts already struggling Alaskan salmon populations.

Read the full article at  SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Newly proposed federal legislation aims to curb Alaska bycatch

January 15, 2026 — Alaska’s congressional delegation introduced legislation Wednesday that aims to reduce bycatch in parts of southwest Alaska using better marine data, technology and gear.

The Bycatch Reduction and Research Act, introduced by U.S. Sens. Dan Sullivan, Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Nick Begich, would address research gaps in environmental data and improve monitoring of fisheries in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska.

It would also establish a fund for fishermen to purchase updated technology and trawl gear to limit seafloor contact and bycatch. That’s when harvesters accidentally catch species they’re not targeting.

The proposed legislation builds on recommendations from the federal Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, which concluded in 2024 and aimed to better understand how humans cause declines in fish and crab species, including through factors like bycatch.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media