INDUSTRY-FUNDED SCIENCE SEEKS ANSWERS TO BERING SEA CHANGES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 9, 2001
Fairbanks, Alaska—Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are pursuing research on Steller sea lion declines, commercial fishing impacts, and ecosystem changes in the Bering Sea, thanks to more than $1 million donated by the pollock industry.
The money was given to the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences by the Pollock Conservation Cooperative, an organization of companies that operate catcher-processor vessels in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands. Fifty-nine Alaska communities, from Nome to Atka, are partial owners of these companies. The PCC Research Center was established last year at UAF to administer the new research program.
"We welcome the partnership with the state's pollock industry to understand what's causing changes in the Bering Sea," UA President Mark Hamilton said. "Their generous gift to the university will help our scientists answer important questions that will improve fisheries management and help unravel the causes of marine mammal declines."
PCC research began last spring when the cooperative provided $385,000 to UAF. An additional $637,000 was awarded in January, for research and to support a research endowment as well as two endowed UAF fisheries faculty positions. Scientists receiving grants will study such issues as possible localized depletion of pollock, possible competition between fishermen and endangered Steller sea lions, and DNA studies to determine the origin of accidentally caught salmon. In all, 17 peer-reviewed research projects are being undertaken in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska during the center's first year.
"Alaska's Bering Sea pollock fishery is the nation's largest fishery," said Trevor McCabe, director of the At-sea Processors Association, the PCC members' trade group. "We want to protect this amazing resource, and to do so, we must learn everything we can about the ecosystem that sustains it."
An additional $380,000 gift was made to Alaska Pacific University and Sheldon Jackson College for their fisheries and oceanography programs. The PCC also contributed $100,000 to a consortium of four universities, which includes the University of Alaska. Altogether, the PCC provided some $1.5 million to research and higher education in the state.
"This is the first of a multi-year research effort by our industry sector," said McCabe, "It is just the beginning."
Under the UAF/PCC research program, all research proposals are peer-reviewed prior to selection by the dean of the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. An advisory committee composed of UAF faculty, PCC members, and a representative of the National Marine Fisheries Service also reviews the proposals and advises the dean in setting annual research priorities.
"It's the role of the university to work closely with state agencies and industry to provide sound science to guide good policies for renewable natural resources," UAF Chancellor Marshall Lind said. "Thanks to this grant from PCC, our researchers can continue to occupy a preeminent role in this area of important scientific discovery."
During its first year, a top research priority at the center is to learn more about Alaska's Steller sea lion decline. Competition with fishermen for prey species like pollock, cod, salmon and herring is suspected as a possible impediment to the recovery of the endangered marine mammal. Alan Springer, a marine biologist at UAF, and Andrew Trites, director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, received a PCC grant to determine the impact of commercial fishing on the Bering Sea ecosystem.
"A central issue is how much competition occurs between Steller sea lions and commercial fisheries," Trites said. "We want to estimate how much overlap there is between Steller sea lion foraging ranges and commercial fishing operations. We also want to look at the distribution of Steller sea lions within critical sea lion habitat relative to the distribution of fish."
Another project entails installing devices called acoustic data loggers on pollock vessels. The device works much like fish finders to allow scientists to plot the location, size and depth of fish schools encountered by the pollock fleet. UAF fisheries scientist Terry Quinn will lead the study.
"Ideally, if you have these things on all the time, they're encountering pollock schools as fishermen go about their business," Quinn said. "Over time, you see the effect of fishing on the distribution of fish schools. You see whether stocks become smaller, less dense, more spread out, that sort of thing."
Other researchers will study the distribution of pollock, the role of killer whales in sea lion declines, Russian markets for pollock, and near-shore survival of sockeye salmon in Kvichak Bay, Alaska. Last summer, researchers examined the seasonal quality of prey found near sea lion haul-outs around the Kodiak Island area. Another project studied hormone levels in free ranging Steller sea lions suffering from malnutrition. The study is helping scientists develop an index to measure the overall health of sea lions.
"PCC funding was critical to getting a number of research projects underway," said Vera Alexander, dean of UAF's School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. "This is the largest program funded by the fishing industry in the University's history, and it shows promise of results important to better understanding the changes occurring in the Bering Sea."
- 30 -
CONTACT: Dr. Vera Alexander, UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, 907-474-6824, or email: vera@sfos.uaf.edu or Heather McCarty, Director, Alaska Affairs, At-Sea Processors Association, 907-586-4260 or email at rising@ptialaska.net. For more information on the research funded by the Pollock Conservation Cooperative visit their web site at http://www.sfos.uaf.edu/pcc/index.html or the Pollock Conservation Cooperative web site at http://www.atsea.org.
DS/CJB/02-09-01/01-048