November 7, 2017 — JUNEAU, Alaska — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which regulates groundfish in Alaska and other federal fisheries, received some shocking news last month.
Pacific cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska may have declined as much as 70 percent over the past two years.
The estimate is a preliminary figure, but it leaves plenty of questions about the future of cod fishing in Gulf of Alaska.
The first question that comes to mind when you hear the number of Pacific cod in the Gulf dropped by about two-thirds is what happened?
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries division’s Steven Barbeaux has been trying to answer that question. Barbeaux said the issue likely started with warmer water moving into the Gulf in 2014 and sticking around for the next three years.
“We had what the oceanographers and the news media have been calling the blob, which is this warm water that was sitting in the Gulf for those three years,” Barbeaux said. “It was different from other years in that it went really deep, but it also lasted throughout the winter.”