Saving Seafood

Climate change preview? Pacific Ocean ‘blob’ appears to take toll on Alaska cod

November 4, 2017 — Gulf of Alaska cod populations appear to have nose-dived, a collapse fishery scientists believe is linked to warm water temperatures known as “the blob” that peaked in 2015.

The decline is expected to substantially reduce the Gulf cod harvests that in recent years have been worth — before processing — more than $50 million to Northwest and Alaska fishermen who catch them with nets, pot traps and baited hooks set along the sea bottom.

The blob also could foreshadow the effects of climate change on the marine ecosystem off Alaska’s coast, where chilly waters rich with food sustain North America’s richest fisheries.

Federal fisheries biologist Steve Barbeaux says that the warm water, which has spread to depths of more than 1,000 feet, hit the cod like a kind of double-whammy. Higher temperatures sped up the rate at which young cod burned calories while reducing the food available for the cod to consume.

“They get weak and die or get eaten by something else,” said Barbeaux, who in October presented preliminary survey findings to scientists and industry officials at an Anchorage meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The 2017 trawl net survey found the lowest numbers of cod on record, more than 70 percent lower than the survey found two years earlier.

Barbeaux said the cod decline likely resulted from the blob, a huge influx of warm Pacific Ocean water that stretched — during its 2015 peak — from the Gulf of Alaska to California’s offshore waters.

Biologists tracked increases in bird die-offs, whale strandings and other events such as toxic algae blooms. Even today, its effects appear to linger, such as in the dismal survey results for salmon this past summer off Oregon and Washington.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

Could migrating squid help Alaska predict climate change?

October 17, 2017 — Juneau, Alaska — Chasing warmer waters, the market squid might be here to stay

Attracted to warming ocean temperatures, small, iridescent squid have been moving into Southeast Alaska waters. They could be a cipher to understanding how sea life reacts to climate change, said University of Alaska Southeast associate professor Dr. Michael Navarro at an Evening at Egan talk Friday at UAS.

Navarro, an assistant professor of marine fisheries, has been studying what are called market squid in partnership with researchers at Stanford University. With the help of undergraduate students, he opened his lab at UAS last month.

He’s trying to understand if market squid are setting up shop here or only visiting. The squid don’t historically range north of British Columbia. Alaska researchers, however, have encountered them in waters in the Gulf of Alaska and Southeast for more than a decade.

Read the full story at Juneau Empire

Survey shows GOA cod biomass down 71 percent

October 16, 2017 — CORDOVA, Alaska — Surveys and preliminary modeling for the 2018 Pacific cod stock assessment show that Pacific cod biomass is down substantially in the Gulf of Alaska, a NOAA Fisheries research biologist told the North Pacific Fishery Management Council during its fall meeting in Anchorage.

The data for the report by Steve Barbeaux of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle only became available several days before the council meeting and the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee expressed its appreciation of the rapid and extensive investigation that Barbeaux and others made, the SSC said.

The most salient survey result was a 71 percent reduction in the Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl survey Pacific cod biomass estimate from 2015 to 2017, a drop observed across the Gulf and particularly pronounced in the Central Gulf, Barbeaux told the SSC.

Barbeaux also presented additional data sets to the SSC that appeared to corroborate the trawl survey results, including a 53 percent drop in the National Martine Fisheries Service 2017 longline survey, and low estimates in recent years by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game large mesh trawl survey. Barbeaux said Pacific cod fishery data from 2017 indicated slower rates of catch accumulation and lower catch per unit effort over the season, at least in the central Gulf, compared to other recent years, and a change in depth distribution toward deeper waters.

Read the full story at The Cordova Times

Researchers want to know why beluga whales haven’t recovered

September 29, 2017 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — New research aims to find out why highly endangered beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet have failed to recover despite protective measures.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded more than $1.3 million to the state for three years of research involving the white whales.

“While we know what we believe caused the initial decline, we’re not sure what’s causing the population to remain suppressed,” said Mandy Keogh, a wildlife physiologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

A population of 1,300 belugas dwindled steadily through the 1980s and early ‘90s.

The decline accelerated when Alaska Natives harvested nearly half the remaining 650 whales between 1994 and 1998. Subsistence hunting ended in 1999 but the population remains at only about 340 animals.

Cook Inlet belugas are one of five beluga populations in U.S. waters. Cook Inlet, named for British explorer Capt. James Cook, stretches 180 miles (290 kilometers) from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

Big Alaska salmon harvest about 5 percent more than forecast

September 12, 2017 — Alaska’s salmon season is nearly a wrap but fall remains as one of the fishing industry’s busiest times of the year.

For salmon, the catch of 213 million has surpassed the forecast by 9 million fish. High points include a statewide sockeye catch topping 50 million for the 10th time in history (37 million from Bristol Bay), and one of the best chum harvests ever at more than 22 million fish.

Total catches and values by region will be released by state fishery managers in November.

Hundreds of boats are now fishing for cod following Sept. 1 openers in Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet, Kodiak and throughout the Bering Sea.

Pollock fishing reopened to Gulf of Alaska trawlers Aug. 25. More than 3 billion pounds of pollock will be landed this year in Alaska’s Gulf and Bering Sea fisheries. Fishing also is ongoing for Atka mackerel, perch, various flounders, rockfish and more.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

As glaciers melt, scientists try to figure out how fish will respond

As climate change puts fisheries, ecosystems on the line, scientists work to understand how marine life will respond

September 11, 2017 — Glaciers in Southeast and around the world are melting. This much scientists know.

About half of the water in the Gulf of Alaska comes from glacial melt, current estimates hold. In Southeast, about 30 percent of all the water flowing from land to sea is glacier melt water.

That percentage is expected to increase due to climate change. But scientists don’t yet know how all that melt water might affect the animals swimming through it.

With the help of a net and a small crew, that’s a problem ecologists Anne Beaudreau and Carolyn Bergstrom have been trying to solve by continuing five years of research this summer. The professors — Bergstrom from the University of Alaska Southeast and Beaudreau from the University of Alaska Fairbanks — have been studying marine biodiversity at the mouths of the Mendenhall, Cowee and Eagle rivers.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

ALASKA: Sen. Sullivan Welcomes NOAA Marine Debris Director to Alaska

August 22, 2017 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) this week welcomed Nancy Wallace, director of the NOAA Marine Debris Program, to Alaska. The Senator and Director Wallace joined a roundtable discussion with Peter Murphy, Alaska regional coordinator of the NOAA Marine Debris Program, Chris Pallister, director of Gulf of Alaska Keeper, and Molly McCammon, director of the Alaska Ocean Observing System, on the topic of marine debris and the Senator’s Save Our Seas (SOS) Act, which passed the Senate in early August.

“I appreciate Director Wallace for taking the time to come to Alaska, a state with a massive coastline that is disproportionately impacted by trash entering the ocean,” said Senator Sullivan. “Director Wallace’s visit sends a strong signal that the federal administration has its attention on Alaska, and is engaged with stakeholders and those on the ground working to keep our shores clean. I also appreciate the efforts of Alaskans, like Chris and Molly, who do such amazing work raising public awareness and helping to clean up Alaska’s coastal ecosystems and prevent further debris from reaching our shores.”

Read the full story at Alaska Business Monthly

This small, lowly sponge from Alaska may have special powers: curing cancer

July 28, 2017 — An obscure Alaska sea sponge, unknown to science until about a decade ago, shows promise as a tool to help patients fight pancreatic cancer, a notoriously deadly and hard-to-treat disease, researchers say.

The sponge, first spotted in 2005 on the floor of the eastern Gulf of Alaska off Baranof Island, holds unusual molecules that target and kill pancreatic cancer cells in the laboratory.

The Alaska sponge now shows more promise as pancreatic-cancer fighter than any of the other sea sponges or plants, marine creatures and bacteria that Mark Hamann of the Medical University of South Carolina and Fred Valeriote of the Henry Ford Cancer Institute in Detroit have examined over the past two decades.

“This is certainly, for us, the best and most exciting looking candidate for the control of pancreatic cancer that we’ve come across in that 20-year period,” Hamann said in a teleconference with reporters Wednesday hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which is collaborating in the research.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to control and spreads rapidly to nearby parts of the body, according to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The pancreas is a part of the digestive system, secreting hormones that enable the body to process sugars.

The Alaska sponge was discovered by Bob Stone, a NOAA Fisheries biologist conducting an ocean-floor survey of coral habitat that fishery managers were interested in protecting.

It immediately stood out for its green color, contrasting with the browns common to Southeast Alaska sea sponges, said Stone, who was in the submersible vessel doing the survey. It looked like a sponge from the faraway Aleutians, he said.

“The second I saw it, I thought I should collect it,” he said.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

North Pacific Fisheries Management Council names new executive director

June 28, 2017 — The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council announced it has a new executive director last week. Former Deputy Director David Witherell will be taking over for Chris Oliver, who was appointed to manage fisheries for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The council manages halibut and ground fish in the Gulf of Alaska, along the Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea. Witherell said he’s prepared to take over the position.

“Fortunately my predecessor Chris Oliver spent quite a bit of time training me to take over the reins, and he gave me a deep understanding of the type of work and gave me the experience to understand what I was getting into as executive director someday,” Witherell explained.

Read the full story at KBBI

Is the Cook Inlet beluga population stable or in danger? Depends on whom you ask.

June 29, 2017 — Alaska’s most urban whales have yet to show any meaningful increase in numbers, evidence that recovery remains elusive for the endangered population despite numerous protective measures imposed in recent years. On the plus side, the Cook Inlet beluga population has not declined notably in the past two years, scientists say.

The latest survey of the small and endangered white whales estimates the population at 328 animals, within a range of 279 and 386, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports.

That represents barely any change from the previous estimate of 340 animals, from 2014, but far below the 1,300 belugas that scientists say were swimming three decades ago in the silty, salty water between Anchorage and the Gulf of Alaska.

“Cook Inlet belugas are still in danger of extinction because the population is so small,” said Paul Wade, head of Cook Inlet beluga research at NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. “The population trend over the last 10 years has been relatively stable compared to the steep decline seen in the 1990s, but there is some evidence the population has continued to decline slightly. We are concerned that the population is not yet increasing towards its former abundance level,” Wade said in a prepared statement.

The newest population estimate comes from the latest in a series of regular aerial counts conducted by NMFS. The estimate is based on thousands of photographs taken from the air a year ago; analysis of those images is a laborious process, so the count that emerged required a full year of work and review, officials said.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News