Beginning in 2018, Alaska fishermen, some of whom may not have the space on their vessel or life raft capacity for a NOAA Fisheries observer, will have the option to use an electronic monitoring (EM) system instead. NOAA Fisheries is integrating EM into the North Pacific Observer Program for the 2018 fishing year. An […]
NOAA Fisheries is proposing to integrate electronic monitoring (EM) into the North Pacific Observer Program. An EM system uses cameras and associated sensors to passively record and monitor fishing activities-work traditionally accomplished by a human fisheries observer. Observers are trained biologists who collect scientific information while aboard commercial fishing vessels. This information contributes to the […]
Interior Alaska is a hungry place — lots of boreal forest and swampy wetlands with big, flat rivers winding through. Wildlife sightings, especially of big mammals, are rare. But a recent video posted by a seismologist makes the Tanana River flats look like the Serengeti. A motion-triggered game camera installed above buried instruments shows visits […]
Shelikof Strait, in the Gulf of Alaska, is an important spawning area for walleye pollock, the target of the largest—and one of the most valuable—fisheries in the nation. This year, a team of NOAA Fisheries scientists went there to turn their usual view of the fishery upside-down. Scientists have been conducting fish surveys in the […]