Saving Seafood

Trump administration is ending NOAA data service used to monitor sea ice off Alaska

May 8, 2025 — The Trump administration is ending National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration services that monitor Arctic sea ice and snow cover, leading climate scientists said Tuesday.

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information has decommissioned its snow and ice data products as of Monday, the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced.

The data collected by that NOAA office is critical to the daily updates provided by the Colorado-based center, which tracks one of the most obvious effects of climate change: the long-term loss of Arctic sea ice.

It is also critical to the regular sea ice reports produced by Rick Thoman at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, as well as to research done by his UAF colleagues.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

How long can North Atlantic right whales live? Scientists may finally have an answer

December 26, 2024 — North Atlantic right whales currently only live to about 22 years old, but a new study finds they should be able to live to over 130.

Researchers from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and other institutions involved in the study say that only 10% of North Atlantic right whales reach the age of 47. The median age at death for the species is about 22.

In contrast, southern right whales, a closely related species, have a median lifespan of about 73 years, and 10% are expected to live to nearly 132 years of age.

Read the full article at GBH

Small fish size linked to poorer runs of chinook in Alaska’s biggest rivers

December 9, 2024 — The shrinking size of Alaska salmon, a decades-long trend linked in part to warming conditions in the ocean, is hampering the ability of chinook in Alaska’s two biggest rivers to produce new generations needed to maintain healthy populations, a new study shows.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks-led study shows how the body conditions of chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, combined with extreme heat and cold in the ocean and freshwater environments, have converged in the Yukon and Kuskokwim river systems to depress what is termed “productivity” — the successful reproduction that results in adult spawners returning to the same area.

The study examines 26 different populations of chinook in those two river systems in areas from Western Alaska to the Yukon River uplands in Canada. Chinook runs in those rivers have faltered in recent years, and the situation has been so dire on the Canadian part of the Yukon that U.S. and Canadian officials earlier this year suspended all harvests of Canadian-origin chinook for seven years.

The analysis of multiple factors and conditions revealed that fish size was a major factor that determined productivity, defined as adult salmon returning to spawning grounds successfully producing a next generation of adults to come back to the same spawning area.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

UAF study links declining salmon to extreme climate, smaller size

December 4, 2024 — A new University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) study published in the scientific journal Global Change Biology, says extreme climate and smaller body size have led to declining Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers’ King Salmon populations.

Over the last decade, the lower number of certain salmon species making it to rural Alaska villages, along the two tributaries, has led the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to impose catching restrictions.

UAF researcher Erik Schoen said the study began in 2020, and examined 26 different spawning areas across the two river basins.

“Across the board, there were a few big drivers that affected all of these populations. Some of those were out in the ocean. So ocean climate, extreme conditions like really cold winters and really hot summers in the ocean had big negative effects,” Schoen said.

Read the full story at Alaska’s News Source

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