Researchers at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center are reporting a never-before-seen phenomenon in Alaska waters—an influx of strange organisms that resemble flattened, translucent sea pickles. It may sound like déjà vu. A similar story made headlines along the West Coast last summer, but this is a new situation for Alaska. Scientists call these jelly-like organisms pyrosomes. The creatures […]
Photos: NOAA Fisheries Mouthing Off About Flatfish Lips July 6, 2017 — Ever wonder why we have lips? What’s their purpose? I bet the reason has less to do with talking and more to do with eating. Out here, I […]
For the first time, we are using an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), a hexacopter, to collect photographs of the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale to estimate the length of individual whales and learn more about why it has been slow to recover despite many efforts to help it. The Cook Inlet watershed stretches some 50,000 […]
NOAA Fisheries marine mammal entanglement experts are hopeful that a humpback whale is free, after a successful operation to cut the anchor line it was stuck in Sunday afternoon near the mouth of Tracy Arm. The humpback had become entangled in the anchor line of the cruise vessel Wilderness Explorer early Sunday morning. During the […]