Saving Seafood

King salmon in Western Alaska are getting smaller, and research suggests predators could be the reason

April 15, 2021 — The size of king salmon returning to Western Alaska rivers to spawn has been decreasing over the past few decades. Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks think that they’re closer to understanding why.

Peter Westley and Andrew Seitz are fisheries scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped publish new research on king salmon in February. To answer why these salmon are getting smaller, researchers attached tags to the fish that can record the depth and temperature of the water around them. Seitz said that many of the tags on the salmon were recording temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

“And we thought, ‘Well, where is it, you know, in the high 70s in the winter in the Bering Sea, even at depth?’ And the only place that we can infer that is that warm is in the belly of a salmon shark,” Seitz said.

Westley and Seitz’s research indicates that returning king salmon are getting smaller because the bigger ones are getting eaten. They said that predators, like salmon sharks, may target the older, larger kings because they stand out. Seitz said that predators’ preference for larger fish may have always existed, but there could just be more predators now than in the past.

Read the full story at KTOO

SETH DANIELSON: The importance of University of Alaska-based monitoring of our oceans

December 15, 2020 — Data is the lifeblood of science. It provides scientists with a way to prove, refine, or disprove our ideas about how the world works. Data from the University of Alaska Fairbanks is providing valuable information for oil spill response, public safety and economic development efforts in the 49th state.

UAF passed a remarkable milestone this month, when scientists from the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences completed a half-century of regular observations at a Gulf of Alaska oceanographic station. Station GAK-1 is located near Seward at the mouth of Resurrection Bay, and it has the longest set of sustained measurements of surface-to-seafloor temperature and salinity in all of Alaska’s coastal and offshore waters.

What does this mean for our state? GAK-1 is providing data to drive good decision-making and help us evaluate risks to Alaska’s marine ecosystem and economy as the ocean becomes warmer and more acidic due to climate change. This monitoring contributes to our understanding of melting glacier runoff in the ocean, variations in Alaska’s commercial fisheries, and the population status of marine mammals.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

Study finds declines in size of Alaska salmon

September 15, 2020 — A recent study that dove into more than 60 years of records from the Alaska Department Fish and Game found that salmon returning to Alaska’s rivers are on average smaller than they were in the past.

The study, headed up by biologists from the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, attributes declines in salmon size to “shifting age structures associated with climate and competition at sea.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

THE SEATTLE TIMES: New UW consortium will lead to a broader, deeper study of ocean health

May 28, 2020 — The University of Washington’s selection to host a new research consortium is a testament to the school’s well-earned reputation. It will help advance understanding of climate, ocean dynamics and marine ecosystems, building on the school’s track record of excellence in the field.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week that the UW will lead a new Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies, which includes Oregon State University and University of Alaska Fairbanks. The designation comes with up to $300 million in funding for research into areas such as climate and ocean variability, the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems, aquaculture and polar studies, in conjunction with the NOAA labs.

The selection is a testament to the UW’s research prowess: The commitment is nearly triple the last NOAA Cooperative Institute award to UW and formalizes longstanding collaborations among researchers along the West Coast.

Read the full opinion piece at The Seattle Times

Invasive plant poses threat to Alaska sockeye salmon

November 22, 2019 — An invasive, quick-spreading aquarium plant could forewarn of the upcoming difficulties that Alaska salmon runs may face as marine environments change from human intervention.

The plant is elodea, which is native to the lower 48 U.S. states and is commonly used in aquariums. Researchers say it was first dumped into Alaska waters in the early 1980’s with the unwanted contents of an aquarium and has since adapted to colder water. Now, it is being transported from lake to lake by float planes and growing at an alarming rate of speed.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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

Global Ocean Acidification Research Starts at Local Level All Around the World

September 10, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Ocean acidification (OA) is a shift in the world’s oceans from neutral to more acidic water from the update of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The ocean absorbs about 30% of the carbon in the air, resulting in increasing levels of carbonic acid in the sea.

Researchers in Alaska, the South Pacific, New England, and further afield are studying the effects of increasing OA on their waters. In Alaska, research is focused on fisheries — from the billion-dollar groundfish resource in the Bering Sea to life-saving subsistence food along coastline; in New England, Martha’s Vinyard oyster ponds are being protected locally as OA increases, and in the South Pacific, a recent gathering of environmental ministers announced new alliances on research for OA, including a brand new Pacific Climate Change Centre (PCCC) to address OA among other climate change impacts, research, and innovation in creating resiliancies among Pacific Nations.

Alaska ranks as the fastest-warming U.S. state, and because it is surrounded by cold oceans, it is experiencing the fastest rise in OA.

The Alaska Ocean Acidification Center connects scientists with stakeholders who want to know everything they can about how OA may affect the state’s valuable fisheries resources. Established in 2016, the Center tracks the latest carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (as of March 30, at 412.48 ppm, the highest recorded ever) and conducts experiments that inform what higher OA will do to pollock, cod, and crab species.

Robert Foy, Science and Research Director for NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, says the direct effects of OA may be to reduce growth rates of juvenile fish, decreasing survival. OA can also interfere with sensory signals in the brain causing the fish to not recognize predators or prey. Indirect effects on the food web may reduce abundance of prey for fish, such as pteropods, the main food for juvenile fish. Cumulative effects may be a reduction in the overall productivity of fish resulting in less to catch commercially or gather for subsistence.

The Alaska Marine Advisory Sea Grant program supports the research of University of Alaska Fairbanks assistant professor Amanda Kelley, a top researcher on ocean acidification’s effects in Alaska. Alaska Sea Grant has funded Kelley’s research studying how shellfish react to different levels of OA. Sea Grant recently produced a video of work Kelley is doing in Seward and in Kachemak Bay to better understand OA and how tribal members and citizen scientists are getting involved in monitoring it.

After Alaska, Rhode Island ranks as the fastest-warming state, following by New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts. The oyster industry in Martha’s Vinyard has been monitoring OA for years and may have an innovative approach to mitigating it.

The Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group launched a shell recycle program, where they collect shells, let them age until they’re clean, and release them back into Great Ponds for restoration. “Adding shells helps buffer the water in small scales,” Emma Green-Beach, lead scientist of the Group said. “It provides hard calcium for baby oysters.”

Oysters are a “keystone species” on Martha’s Vineyard, as their existence provides a habitat for other organisms. “When you have clusters of oysters, they make huge reefs where fish, urchins, crabs, and all sorts of plants and animals can live,” Green-Beach said. “Little fish can hide there. Big fish can hunt there. Oysters create a hard and complex structure on an otherwise muddy, flat bottom.” Oysters also filter water, and adults can filter up to 50 gallons a day, according to Green-Beach.

The work that is being carried out in the Pacific to address this issue was highlighted at a side event during the second day of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)’s 29th Meeting of Officials taking place in Apia, Samoa last week.

Among those highlighted was work of the New Zealand-Pacific Partnership on Ocean Acidification (NZPPOA) project in Fiji and Tokelau, Samoa’s joint initiative on OA monitoring with the Republic of Korea, and the recently published “Mainstreaming Ocean Acidification into National Policies” handbook on OA for the Pacific.

The NZPPOA project is a collaborative effort between the University of the South Pacific, the Pacific Community and SPREP, with funding support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand and the Government of the Principality of Monaco. It aims to build the resilience of Pacific island communities to OA and was developed in response to needs identified during the Third United Nations Small Islands States Conference in Apia in 2014.

Its focus is on research and monitoring, capacity and awareness building, and practical adaptation actions. The pilot sites for the practical adaptation actions were Fiji, Kiribati, and Tokelau, two of which were present at the side event this afternoon and presented on the progress of the work being done in their countries.

OA monitoring buoys have been set up and deployed successfully in Palau, and will soon be set up in Samoa, and staff of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in Samoa will have the responsibility to operate and maintain these buoy systems.

This story was originally posted on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Blooms, beasts affected as Alaska records hottest month

August 19, 2019 — Alaska has been America’s canary in the coal mine for climate warming, and the yellow bird is swooning.

July was Alaska’s warmest month ever, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Sea ice melted. Bering Sea fish swam in above-normal temperatures. So did children in the coastal town of Nome. Wildfire season started early and stayed late. Thousands of walruses thronged to shore.

Unusual weather events like this could become more common with climate warming, said Brian Brettschneider, an associate climate researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ International Arctic Research Center. Alaska has seen “multiple decades-long increases” in temperature, he said.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Locked in and off-loaded: Quotas stifle diversity and stability in fishing

July 25, 2019 — As any commercial fisherman knows, fishing is a risky business. Fluctuations in markets, regulations, fish populations and the weather — not to mention the climate’s growing volatility — can result in fluctuating income that can threaten a fisherman’s livelihood.

Buffering against these fluctuations might mean taking a page from another risky business: the stock market.

A growing body of research is showing that, in most cases, fishermen are more likely to have stable year-to-year incomes if they diversify their fishing portfolios, much like an investor would diversify a stock portfolio, giving them a safety net to weather whatever the year brings.

“It can really pay for fishermen to diversify,” said Anne Beaudreau, a fisheries professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

But there’s a surprising and troubling hitch to the promise of diversification. Alaskan fishermen are trending in a different direction — fewer people are fishing, and they are fishing fewer types of fish.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Study pinpoints trend toward fisheries specialization

May 10, 2019 — Commercial fishermen in Alaska have gotten older in the past three decades. As it turns out, they’ve become more specialized, too.

Fewer permits overall are in the water; between the early 1990s and 2014, commercial fishing permits in Alaska decreased by 25 percent. On top of that, fewer individual fishermen are moving between fisheries.

From 1988-2014, the number of individuals holding multiple permits declined from 30 percent to 20 percent, according to a study published in the journal Fish and Fisheries.

The bottom line: fishermen are increasingly putting all their economic eggs into one basket, and that makes them more vulnerable to the ups and downs of fishing.

The study was born out of a workgroup that met through the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California Santa Barbara, said co-author Anne Beaudreau, an associate professor of fisheries at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The original intent was to study the long-term effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, but the data on fisheries specialization arose out of that work, she said.

“As we worked on this, we realized there are so many things that have caused long-term changes in the Gulf of Alaska; in the fisheries, it’s really hard to see the long-term effects of the oil spill,” she said. “A lot of the focus of the working group was on the biological effects … this paper sort of came out of the end of that.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce