ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The Coast Guard issued a violation to a commercial fishing boat near Kodiak Island. A boarding team from Cutter Chandeleur discovered eight allegedly illegally-retained halibut aboard vessel Currency about 12 miles west of Cape Barnabas. The violation reflected a seasonal closure for halibut. Chandeleur’s boarding team seized the halibut and handed them […]
NEWPORT, Ore. – Researchers can now determine the age and sex of living beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet thanks to a new DNA-based technique that uses information from small samples of skin tissue. Accurate age estimates are vital to conservation efforts for Cook Inlet belugas, which were listed as endangered following a significant population decline in […]
For more than two decades, Alaska has led the way in using ecosystem information to inform resource management decisions. In 2020, contributions from research partners and local communities together with NOAA scientists helped fill some data gaps. Each year, NOAA Fisheries scientists compile information from a variety of sources to produce and update annual indicators […]
A bearded seal rests on ice in the Bering Sea. NOAA/Cameron NOAA Fisheries is proposing to designate critical habitat in U.S. waters off the coast of Alaska for Arctic ringed seals and the Beringia distinct population of bearded seals. Both species are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The ESA requires that NOAA […]
This may be the first time data collected using uncrewed surface vehicles were used to help produce an annual estimate of abundance for a commercial fish stock. Every other year, NOAA Fisheries conducts an acoustic-trawl survey from crewed research vessels to measure pollock abundance in Alaska’s eastern Bering Sea. As a result of COVID-19, many […]
Natural resource managers in British Columbia discovered several adult male and female European green crabs on Haida Gwaii this past July. Alarm bells immediately went off for biologists in Alaska. The archipelago of Haida Gwaii, off the coast of Prince Rupert in British Columbia, is very close to Alaska. The July discovery is the closest confirmed finding […]
Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation introduced by Congressmen Don Young (R-AK) and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) that will help local and state governments protect the country’s 95,000 miles of shoreline. The Digital Coast Act will now be considered by the U.S. Senate, which already passed the legislation before technical changes were made. The […]
A new Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System, also known as PORTSⓇ, aims to improve maritime safety and efficiency off Valdez, Alaska. NOAA and the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Counciloffsite link partnered to establish the third new PORTS system this year, the 36th in the nationwide network. The Valdez PORTS will consist of an existing NOAA National Water […]
In May of 2020, local geologists identified a steep, unstable slope that has the potential to become a tsunami-generating landslide in Barry Arm, a glacial fjord 60 miles east of Anchorage, Alaska. With documented cases of tsunami-generating landslides in Alaska including Lituya Bay in 1958 and Taan Fjord in 2015, this new hazard immediately caught the attention of […]