Saving Seafood

Study: Fishery consolidation in Alaska leaves fishermen vulnerable

May 9, 2019 — Alaskan commercial fishermen are specializing more and more, leaving them more vulnerable to the immense uncertainty fishermen have to contend with, according to a new study.

Targeting a diverse array of fish types in different regions can allow fishermen to weather the ups and downs instigated by fish population changes, new regulations, deflating markets and environmental disasters. But fishermen in Alaska are increasingly specializing. Fewer fishermen are on the water than three decades ago, and those who remain are participating in fewer fisheries, according to the study, which was published in Fish and Fisheries.

“Across different fisheries and regions of Alaska, there are fewer people fishing than there used to be and their fishing portfolios have become less diverse,” Anne Beaudreau, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told SeafoodSource.

Individual fishery quota systems, plus the high cost of permits and other institutional barriers, have made it more difficult for new players to enter Alaskan fisheries, according to the study.

Though fishermen could, in theory, diversify their portfolio of permits, those management restrictions and high costs often prevent them from doing so, leading to more specialization. Permits can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the fishery, Beaudreau said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Overlooked jellyfish play big role in Gulf of Alaska

April 15, 2019 — “Jellyfish have superpowers,” assured Heidi Mendoza-Islas, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

The voracious carnivores will eat almost anything that fits into their mouths. When conditions are good, they grow fast and multiply. When conditions aren’t ideal, baby jellies can transform into cysts and wait it out.

So it is no surprise that jellyfish have been successful predators in the Gulf of Alaska, Mendoza-Islas said. But few studies have focused on the role jellyfish play in the Gulf’s ecosystem or how jellyfish affect commercially important finfish, such as pollock. Mendoza-Islas wants to change that.

Read the full story at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Pace of Bering Sea Changes Startles Scientists

April 15, 2019 — The Yupik Eskimo village of Kotlik on Alaska’s northwest coast relies on a cold, hard blanket of sea ice to protect homes from vicious winter Bering Sea storms.

Frigid north winds blow down from the Arctic Ocean, freeze saltwater and push sea ice south. The ice normally prevents waves from forming and locks onto beaches, walling off villages. But not this year.

In February, southwest winds brought warm air and turned thin sea ice into “snow cone ice” that melted or blew off. When a storm pounded Norton Sound, water on Feb. 12 surged up the Yukon River and into Kotlik, flooding low-lying homes. Lifelong resident Philomena Keyes, 37, awoke to knee-deep water outside her house.

“This is the first I experienced in my life, a flood that happened in the winter, in February,” Keyes said in a phone interview.

Read the full story at NBC Los Angeles

‘Extreme’ lack of sea ice and autumn heat marked Alaska weather in 2018

January 2, 2019 — A stunning shortage of Bering Sea ice in spring and record warmth in autumn marked what scientists say will be one of the warmest years recorded in Alaska, raising questions about everything from the future of commercial fishing to new agricultural opportunities.

Alaska’s most “extreme” 2018 climate event was the lack of Bering Sea ice, growing only to half its previous lowest size, in 2001, said Rick Thoman, a climatologist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

That had consequences in Western Alaska coastal communities, causing winter flooding in villages usually ringed by protective sea ice, and raising risks for people hunting on iffy ice, or by boat instead of snowmachines.

“It is absolutely unprecedented,” said Thoman. “We’ve seen nothing like it” in records extending from modern satellite data back to whalers’ logs in the 1800s.

The limited ice, coupled with high sea surface temperatures and a mildly warm atmosphere, ensured that 2018 will be one of the five warmest years in Alaska history. The state averaged about 30.1 degrees statewide, Thoman said, based on a preliminary estimate.

It will mean the four warmest years in the state have been recorded in the last five years, with 2002 being the only outlier, he said. 2016 was the warmest-ever year for Alaska, at 31.9 degrees, based on records back to 1925.

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily 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

Researchers try to understand why Pacific cod stocks are crashing in Gulf of Alaska

May 31, 2018 — On an island about 4 miles off of Kodiak, marine scientists working with the University of Alaska are trying to figure out why Pacific cod stocks are crashing in the Gulf of Alaska.

And, how climate change may be affecting the fish when they’re young.

Mike Litzow and, his wife, Alisa Abookire, try to pull in a beach seine on a soggy gray day on Long Island. But, they catch more seaweed than fish as they slowly sink deeper into the shore’s mud.

“We have to get some kelp out, Liz,” Litzow said. “Oh no, it’s the freaking motherload. This will be our day right here if we aren’t careful.”

This isn’t a normal fishing trip.

The marine scientists are collaborating on a study for the University of Alaska Fairbanks to figure out why Pacific cod stocks are declining in the Gulf of Alaska and how warming waters may be affecting the species when they’re young.

Read the full story at KTOO 

 

Why are Pacific Cod Stocks Crashing?

February 13, 2018 — “The status of Pacific cod is probably the biggest fishery issue facing Kodiak right now, with the quota cut 80 percent for 2018,” said Mike Litzow, a University of Alaska Fairbanks associate professor at the Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center.

Pacific cod stocks have collapsed, possibly because recruitment (production of young fish to enter the population) has been very low during a recent string of incredibly warm years in the Gulf of Alaska, he said.

Scientists don’t know why cod stocks are shrinking. The leading hypothesis is that warmer temperatures increase the metabolic rates of young cod, and their food sources don’t supply enough energy.

There’s a sticking point—there’s not enough data to test the theory. Studies of fish ecology and population dynamics in Alaska are overwhelmingly conducted in the summer. Almost nothing is known about wintertime ecology of juvenile Pacific cod.

To help provide answers, Litzow and fisheries oceanographer Alisa Abookire embarked on a pilot study this month to collect information about habitat use, diet and energetics of juvenile cod.

They are sampling the fish with a beach seine and taking ocean water data aboard a semi-enclosed 22 foot skiff. To stay warm they wear insulated paddling suits.

Litzow and Abookire are collaborating with scientists at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore., who have been studying juvenile cod in Kodiak over the last 12 years. The pilot study is funded by the Ocean Phoenix Fund through the University of Alaska Foundation.

Read the full story at Alaska Native News

 

Network seeks to bring together data on harmful algal blooms

February 6, 2018 — A group of scientists is coming together to share information related to harmful algal blooms in Alaska.

Under the umbrella of the Alaska Ocean Observation System, part of the national ocean observation system network, a partnership of state agencies, Alaska Native organizations and the University of Alaska has launched the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network. The intent is to stitch together a statewide approach to researching, monitoring, responding to and spreading information about harmful algal blooms in the state.

Algal blooms are natural processes in the ocean and occur when the population of algae in a certain area increases dramatically. However, they can turn toxic when certain types of algae proliferate and produce chemicals that can be harmful to other plants, animals and people, or consume all the oxygen in the water as they decay. The events, called harmful algal blooms, occur all over the planet, in both freshwater and the ocean, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve been seeing more and more of these bloom events happening,” said Ginny Eckert, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Juneau and co-chair of the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network’s executive committee. “It’s always a question: Are we seeing more because we’re paying attention more? But … the more information we can get out to people, (the better).”

Harmful algal blooms can have devastating consequences. In 2014, nearly 500,000 Ohio residents had to go without clean drinking water because of harmful algal blooms near a water treatment plant in Lake Erie. A harmful algal bloom in a lake that flowed into the ocean near Monterey Bay, California in 2007 is thought to have killed 11 sea otters with infections of microcystin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Every year in Alaska, a number of alerts go out to shellfish gatherers to be careful because some of the clams, oysters and mussels may have high levels of a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, a fatal condition in humans.

Read the full at the Peninsula Clarion

 

Alaska Sea Grant awards over $1 million for research

January 24, 2018 — Alaska Sea Grant has selected six research projects for funding during 2018-2020, with the majority of the work getting underway next month.

The researchers will receive $1.3 million to study a diverse range of topics intended to help Alaskans understand, conserve and sustainably use the state’s rich marine and coastal resources. The research will advance knowledge in Sea Grant’s main focus areas: healthy coastal ecosystems, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, and resilient communities and economies. Six graduate students are involved, contributing to the next generation of science professionals in Alaska.

“We received 47 pre-proposals and 18 full proposals. The six that we funded ranked highest in a rigorous peer-review process and will address critical needs for Alaska marine and coastal research,” said Ginny Eckert, Alaska Sea Grant’s associate director of research. “The investigators work within the University of Alaska system as well as Alaska agencies and nonprofits with expertise in marine and social sciences.”

Alaska Sea Grant is part of the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Sea Grant Program, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at the University of Alaska Fairbanks

 

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