Mass mortality of seabirds. Marine mammal deaths. Alaskans sickened by shellfish. What’s the common theme? Seawater contaminated by toxic algae. Call it death by phytoplankton. A group of Alaskans — including state officials, tribes, nonprofit organizations and researchers — have recently come together to try to combat these marine toxins. The goal is to keep […]
This week NOAA Fisheries scientists hope to witness the changing colors of the Bering Sea as they investigate why it happens and what it means for the ecosystem that supports the Nation’s biggest fisheries. In the summer of 1997, for the first time anyone could remember, a vast swath of the deep blue Bering Sea […]
The disastrous 2015-16 Dungeness crab season, delayed and shortened by an unprecedented bloom of toxic algae, is a bitter memory for the West Coast fishing industry. The culprit was domoic acid, a potent neurotoxin produced by marine algae and discovered in 1987 as the cause of amnesic shellfish poisoning. Scientists at UC Santa Cruz have […]
A record-breaking algal bloom continues to expand across the North Pacific reaching as far north as the Aleutian Islands and as far south as southern California. Coinciding with well above average sea surface temperatures across the North Pacific and West Coast of North America, the bloom is laced with some toxic species that have had […]