University of Washington Archives

ALASKA: Preliminary 2027 forecast for Alaska’s Bristol Bay fishery predicts more, smaller sockeye

August 17, 2026 — With the 2026 commercial salmon harvests winding down in Alaska, the seafood industry is already calculating how to navigate at a profit in 2027, given dynamic biological, economic, climate and market conditions.

Their forecast has a far-reaching socio-economic impact across the state — Bristol Bay’s commercial fishery had about $2 billion in economic impact and supported 15,000 jobs in 2019 according to research from the McKinley Research Group.

Data from the University of Washington’s forthcoming preliminary preseason forecast for the celebrated Bristol Bay wild sockeye fishery anticipate a run of 45 million fish next year, up from the 2026 forecast of 41.5 million. But run size is just one of many factors under consideration.

Fish size is one of those factors: 45 million big fish have more meat — and a bigger economic effect — than 45 million smaller fish. The size of the fish also helps determine which products the processors will produce.

“When we get really big returns the fish are smaller for their age, because they are competing for their food,” said salmon researcher Daniel Schindler of the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “We estimate how many fish of each age class are coming back.”

For 2027 those preliminary indications are for 20 million fish that have spent three years in the ocean — known as three ocean fish — and 30 million fish that have spent two years in the ocean in 2027. Because there are more fish that have spent less time in the ocean, the overall catch will be smaller.

But the climate can affect how much of that forecast becomes a reality.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

New tool could predict ocean acidity in Bering Sea

August 10, 2026 — Crab populations in the Bering Sea are struggling. And researchers say climate change is a big cause. A new tool described in a study published Aug. 3 in the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans will help researchers predict one of climate change’s biggest threats to crabs: ocean acidity. The study’s authors hope their work can help crabbers and fishery managers.

“I’m excited with this new model and study,” said Jamie Goen, the executive director of the nonprofit trade association Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. “It will help us better understand what could be happening and how that might impact fisheries.”

Darren Pilcher, the study’s lead author and an oceanographer at the University of Washington, said he started the study because of requests from fisheries stakeholders.

The ocean absorbs a quarter of our carbon emissions, which make the water more acidic when the two mix. Acidic conditions are harmful for many different animals. This is especially true for shellfish, like crabs.

“They can eat more, and that helps a little bit, only to a certain point,” Pilcher said. “In fact, in some of the previous experiments with red king crab, if you lower the pH to a value of 7.5, the crab just die.”

Scientists have pointed to factors from climate change, like ocean acidification, as the reason the number of Bristol Bay red king crabs has plummeted in recent years. Goen said that other species, like snow crab, have also tanked.

Read the full article at KMXT

NOAA scientists set sail on landmark West Coast Ocean Acidification survey

July 21, 2026 — The following was released by the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

On July 20, 2026, researchers embarked on the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program’s West Coast Ocean Acidification mission (WCOA 2026). Departing from San Diego aboard the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (R/V) Sikuliaq, the team will travel north to Washington, adding important new observations to NOAA’s long-term monitoring of ocean acidification and its impacts on marine resources.

WCOA 2026 will couple ocean chemistry, biology, and physics to build a more comprehensive view of how extreme events impact biogeochemistry and ecosystems.

“Results from past WCOA cruises have provided novel insights into acidification rates and impacts in coastal and estuary habitats that provide our nation with rich fish and shellfish resources,” said Dr. Simone Alin, Supervisory Oceanographer, NOAA/PMEL. Resource managers and harvesters can use this information to inform fisheries management decisions.

This intensive 30-day coastal research cruise aboard the 261-foot research vessel offers scientists a unique opportunity of sampling during an El Niño that is on track to become one of the strongest on record. El Niño brings warmer water and can alter upwelling and precipitation patterns in the region. Phytoplankton and zooplankton communities will follow these warmer waters, which impacts food webs and fisheries as seen during past marine heatwaves.

Two days after the Sikuliaq departs, the PMEL SeaTrac will head south from Washington to collect added coastal measurements during peak ocean acidification and hypoxia season and pick up any El Niño signal that may have made to the northern California Current System this summer. These OA cruises provide critical high-quality data for the U.S. Coastal Large Marine Ecosystems, and are essential for modeling and forecasting changes in ocean acidification and hypoxia to better prepare for future impacts to valued fisheries and ecosystems.

Led by researchers at the University of Washington’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, & Ecosystem Studies and PMEL, researchers will collect high-quality ocean chemistry data, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and other observations. Scientists will also collect environmental DNA, which can reveal the diversity and abundance of ocean life in different ocean conditions.

Data collected during WCOA 2026 are essential for validating models and forecasts of ocean conditions like J-SCOPE. This short term (six to nine month) forecast is used for the California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment. High quality ocean carbon chemistry data is required to forecast the saturation state of calcium carbonate, the mineral building block used by shellfish like Dungeness crabs, clams, and oysters.

Other coordinated regular coastal fisheries surveys, including the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) enhance the impact of WCOA 2026. By conducting biological net tows at established stations, researchers will gain high-quality data on marine life.

Ultimately, the data collected through WCOA 2026 will serve as a foundational benchmark for monitoring, modeling and research in the region. These data will provide calibration information for sensor networks designed to fill measurement gaps between research cruises. With the potential for sampling to occur as ocean conditions change with El Niño, NOAA and our partners will be able to better understand how extreme conditions alter vital marine resources like Dungeness crabs, krill, plankton and other fisheries.

Costly efforts to reopen rivers for fish can produce mixed results — this method can help planners avoid stranded investments

June 5, 2026 — Fish that split their lives between fresh and salt water often face obstacles getting back and forth. Dams and roads fracture river networks and interfere with traditional migratory routes, sparking concerns about fish health and abundance, as well as biodiversity on a broader scale.

Efforts to restore fish passage are cropping up across the country, but these projects come with hefty price tags. In a new study, published June 3 in PLOS One, University of Washington researchers explore whether this money is being well spent by examining the process that determines which projects are prioritized.

The current standard, called score and rank, involves evaluating barriers one by one and assigning a score based on potential gains, such as habitat expansion. Top-ranking projects become leading candidates for funding, but score and rank systems don’t always account for barriers in the full river context. High-scoring projects can yield stranded investments, where removing the barrier doesn’t have the desired outcome because of other barriers downstream or immediately upstream.

Read the full article at the University of Washington

The missing secret behind West Coast groundfish recovery

May 11, 2026 — For years, rebuilding of West Coast groundfish stocks has been held up as one of the great success stories in American fisheries management. NOAA once called it the “comeback of the century,” celebrating the rebound of stocks that had been declared overfished in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But according to an analysis from University of Washington researchers, there’s another side to that story, one that the industry has long felt firsthand.

“Stocks were rebuilt, but at a great cost to the industry and U.S. food production,” Ray Hilborn, professor at the University of Washington, wrote in an email to National Fisherman.

Hilborn pointed to research he co-authored examining whether West Coast groundfish stocks could have rebuilt under less restrictive management measures, and whether fishermen, processors, and coastal communities paid a steeper economic price than necessary during the recovery process.

“What NOAA doesn’t advertise is that if no rebuilding plans had been implemented, $886 million in additional revenue would have been made by the fishing fleets, and the stocks would have rebuilt, but more slowly,” Hilborn wrote.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Bristol Bay sockeye forecast drops below recent average for 2026

May 11, 2026 — University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program researchers are forecasting a 2026 total Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run of 41.5 million fish, with slightly larger fish than in 2025.

The report, released on Wednesday, May 6, in Seattle, projects that most of the returning sockeye will be fish that spent either two or three winters in the ocean before returning to Bristol Bay to spawn. Researchers expect about 46 percent of the run to be 2-ocean fish and 54 percent to be 3-ocean fish, with average weights ranging from 4.9 to 6.6 pounds.

The forecast is 32 percent below the recent 10-year average of 60.1 million fish, according to data made available in November 2025,

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game in a separate forecast of March 24, projected a run of 45.32 million fish, allowing for a projected harvest of 32.26 million red salmon. That forecast is 26 percent lower than the recent 10-year average, but still 21 percent higher than the long-term average.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

UW study shows PNW waters acidifying faster than rest of world’s oceans

April 23, 2026 — The waters off the Pacific Northwest are becoming more acidic at a faster rate than the rest of the world’s oceans, a global problem exacerbated by the region’s unique geography, according to a University of Washington study.

Researchers found the California Current System, which runs along the West Coast from British Columbia to Baja California, and the Salish Sea, which includes Puget Sound, have experienced amplified acidification over the past 130 years, outpacing the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

“We are already naturally acidic and then we see this bump and then we’re saying that extra bit is increasing faster than we expected,” said Alex Gagnon, an associate professor of oceanography at UW and principal investigator on the study.

The Pacific Northwest is naturally prone to acidic ocean conditions because of a process called upwelling, in which cold, nutrient-rich water is pulled up from the deep ocean to the surface.

Read the full article at King 5

SFP and Hilborn Lab launch 8th edition of the Fishery Improvement Projects Database

April 20, 2026 — The following was released by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership:

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and the Hilborn Lab at the University of Washington have released the 8th version of the Fishery Improvement Projects Database (FIP-DB), marking another major step forward in providing structured data to help track the evolution, scale, and performance of fishery improvement projects (FIPs) worldwide.

The FIP-DB is a comprehensive, publicly available resource that compiles and standardizes data from leading platforms, including SFP’s Improvement Projects Tracker and FisheryProgress.org. With records spanning more than two decades, the database provides a unique historical and real-time view of how FIPs have grown and evolved across the globe.

This latest update highlights the continued expansion of the FIP landscape. Over time, FIPs have increased not only in number, but also in geographic reach, diversity of species covered, and range of fisheries engaged. This growth reflects the rising importance of collaborative management and market-driven approaches to improving fisheries sustainability worldwide.

“FIPs have emerged as one of the leading market-based approaches for delivering improvements in fisheries supplying global seafood markets, with more than 350 projects initiated to date,” said Indrani Lutchman, Program Director of FIP Evaluation and External Relations at SFP. “With each new version of the database, we are better able to capture the scale, diversity, and progress of these efforts, and provide the structured data needed for scientific and robust analyses of their impact.”

A key highlight of this year’s release is the continued evolution of the database itself. The FIP-DB has expanded significantly in both depth and amount of information over successive versions, and the 2026 update introduces two major additions:

FIP stage indicators, enabling more detailed analysis of how projects are progressing in implementing workplans and delivering measurable improvements
FAO Global Record of Stocks and Fisheries (GRSF) Universal Identifiers, allowing stronger alignment with global fisheries datasets and improving the ability to map FIPs to specific fisheries and stocks.

Together, these improvements will open new opportunities for researchers and analysts to better understand FIP performance and link it to effective changes in policy and governance and, ultimately, improvements in fisheries and ecosystems.

The FIP-DB has helped advance scientific research, providing a key reference for peer-reviewed studies, global assessments, and FIP landscape reports. Beyond the research community, the database serves a wide range of stakeholders, including:

Nonprofit organizations, supporting conservation strategies and evaluation of FIP effectiveness
Seafood industry actors, informing responsible sourcing decisions and supply chain risk assessments
Government agencies, providing consistent, data-driven insights to guide fisheries management and policy.

“Research investigating the emergence and effect of sustainability-related actions requires knowledge of what has been done, where, how, by whom, and with what results,” said Dianty Ningrum, researcher in sustainability science at the Anthropocene Laboratory of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. “Such knowledge can facilitate learning across regions and between sectors, and allow for transfer of knowledge, expertise, and mimicking of strategies. Datasets like the FIP-DB are an important for building such knowledge. The experts developing this platform have been helpful in our work to conduct a cross-sectoral global assessment of actions for sustainability.”

Similar to previous editions, the new version includes an updated interactive Tableau dashboard, with selected visualizations of trends in FIP growth, geographic expansion, species coverage, and performance indicators. The dashboard enables users to explore how the FIP landscape has developed over time and to identify key patterns and trends.

For more information and access to the database and dashboard, visit:
https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/databases/fishery-improvement-projects-database/

Researchers: parasites help measure in salmon populations

January 22, 2026 — Opening a can of worms may prove the answer to a salmon fishery researcher’s question, especially dead anisakid, roundworms found in old cans of wild Alaska salmon.

Results of the initial study on what four decades of canned salmon reveal about marine food webs were released in the spring of 2024. Now using new grant funds, Natalie Mastick of Arizona State University is again collaborating with Chelsea Wood at the University of Washington to further explore the history of marine parasites to determine the impact on the health of a marine ecosystem.

The current research award from the North Pacific Research Board in Anchorage began in the summer of 2025 and runs through December 2027, Wood said.

According to the Seafood Products Association in Seattle, parasites can reduce the growth, survivorship, and marketability of commercially important marine fish species, particularly in Alaska.

While finding worms in salmon fillets, even dead ones, may cause concern, their presence is not a threat to human health and often signals that the fish originated from a healthy marine ecosystem. High-pressure canning, including the timing and temperatures involved, kills the parasites.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Scientists Deliberate Impacts of Monument Pelagic Fishing Prohibitions

December 9, 2025 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

On the first day of its 158th meeting, the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council reviewed the best available science on the potential benefits and costs of restoring commercial fishing in U.S. Pacific marine national monuments.

A presentation by SSC member Ray Hilborn, University of Washington professor, examined the limited data available from within existing monument closures, new information from recent re-openings and economic performance of U.S. longline vessels before and after closures. The analysis compared widely promoted claims that large marine protected areas (MPAs) increase biodiversity, create healthier ecosystems and support sustainable fisheries with empirical evidence from the Pacific.

The presentation highlighted that:

There is very little direct fishery or ecosystem data from inside the closed areas, with most insights coming from catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) near monument boundaries, acoustic data from drifting fish aggregating devices and economic studies.
For the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, modeled increases in tuna abundance through spillover were modest (on the order of a few percent), and may not translate into large fishery gains.
In U.S. monument waters, where historical fishing pressure was relatively low, large ecological responses to closure are not expected, and recent studies have found no measurable increase in tuna biomass density inside open-ocean MPAs and, in some cases, substantial reductions in bigeye CPUE linked to the loss of historically productive grounds.
Closures of marine national monuments create an illusion of “protection” while leaving non-fishing threats ignored.

Hilborn’s talk also outlined potential SSC platforms for discussion, including that well-regulated U.S. fisheries under the Magnuson–Stevens Act (MSA) are unlikely to pose an abatable threat to pelagic stocks that can be solved through large open-ocean MPAs alone, and that management frameworks such as the MSA and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission already provide tools to achieve conservation goals while considering human and community impacts.

Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association, provided public comment following the SSC discussion. He noted that existing monument area closures “exclude U.S. vessels from U.S. waters and leave us very constrained in where we can fish.” Citing declining bigeye catch rates, Kingma emphasized that “we need to be able to find and follow the fish – that’s the most important part.”

“We’re not looking for more fish, but to have the opportunity to fish more efficiently away from competitors,” Kingma said.