Kongsberg Discovery Partners with Arctic Storm for Advanced US-built Trawler-processor
from Kongsberg Discovery tailored to locate, inspect, and engage fish with unparalleled efficiency.The 100-meter-long Arctic Fjord, designed by Kongsberg Maritime and built by Louisiana’s Thoma-Sea Marine Constructor, will start full-time operations for 2024’s pollock A season in the Bering Sea.Speaking ahead of this week’s Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle, Washington, Kongsberg Discovery reveals that the vessel, which replaces Arctic Storm’s original, 1974-built Arctic Fjord vessel, is outfitted with systems designed to optimize both efficiency and environmental performance
The Information Age is Transforming Fishing Worldwide
for each fisherman, have helped curb overfishing. Imposing catch shares can be highly controversial, but since the year 2000, 47 U.S. stocks that were overfished and shut down have been rebuilt and reopened for fishing, thanks to policy judgments based on the best available science. Examples include Bering Sea snow crab, North Atlantic swordfish and red grouper in the Gulf of Mexico.A growing “fishie” movement that mirrors the widespread “foodie” locavore movement has been gaining steam for more than a decade. Taking a page from agriculture, subscribers to community-supported
The Arctic: Scientists Aim to Improve Sea Ice Predictions' Accuracy, Access
in the Arctic declines, thins and becomes more mobile, accurate forecasts are becoming even more vital for things like fisheries and resource development, shipping, subsistence activities and wildlife management.Bhatt said the SIPN team hopes to work with the Alaska maritime industry, especially the Bering Sea snow crab fishermen, to make ice forecasts even more accurate and useful to those who work in or live next to the world’s polar waters and to scientists studying sea ice decline and the Arctic climate.The SIPN team plans to enhance sea-ice predictions by including data for sea-ice thickness
MTR100: Saildrone takes USVs to the Next Level
, unmanned space.“As you know, (because of COVID), when everyone was locked down, all the government ships were stuck in port (which presented) huge vulnerabilities to the nation for security rules in fisheries,” said Jenkins. “Every year, we do a fish stock survey in the Bering Sea, it’s part of the pollock fish stock assessment for NOAA fisheries. And the NOAA ship that normally does that was unable to get to the fisheries’ grounds. So they were going to have to essentially guess a fish stock assessment based on previous years. But we managed to sail three vehicles
Climate Change is Flooding the Arctic with Light – and New Species
singling out species that have caused harm elsewhere and that could endure Arctic environmental conditions. Nearly two dozen potential invaders show a high chance for taking hold in Arctic Canada.© shorex.koss / Adobe StockAmong these is the cold-adapted red king crab, native to the Sea of Japan, Bering Sea and North Pacific. It was intentionally introduced to the Barents Sea in the 1960s to establish a fishery and is now spreading south along the Norwegian coast and in the White Sea. It is a large, voracious predator implicated in substantial declines of harvested shellfish, sea urchins and other
Winter Sea Ice in Bering Sea Reached Lowest Levels in Millennia
The Bering Sea ice cover during the winters of 2018 and 2019 hit new lows not seen in thousands of years, scientists reported on Wednesday, adding to concerns about the accelerating impact of climate change in the Arctic.Satellite data provides a clear picture of how sea ice has changed over the last four decades in the region between the Arctic and northern Pacific oceans. Beyond that, the only ice records available were those recorded in ship logs and other observations.So scientists turned to peat land, which holds organic compounds from plants dating back millennia, on the remote St. Matthew
US Destroyer Wreckage Discovered off Remote Alaskan Island
For almost 75 years, the stern of the destroyer USS Abner Read lay somewhere below the dark surface of the Bering Sea off the Aleutian island of Kiska, where it sank after being torn off by an explosion while conducting an anti-submarine patrol. Seventy-one U.S. Navy Sailors were lost in the aftermath of the blast, during a brutal and largely overlooked early campaign of World War II.Heroic action by the crew saved the ship, but for the families of the doomed Sailors, the final resting place of loved ones lost in the predawn hours of Aug. 18, 1943 remained unknown.On July 17, a NOAA-funded team of
NOAA Releases 2018 Hydrographic Survey Plans
of the inlet last surveyed in 1917. This project provides contemporary surveys for the area. Southwest Alaskan Peninsula – This survey project updates nautical charting products to support the increase in vessel traffic in Unimak Passage. Fishing fleets in Bristol Bay and Bering Sea frequent this area. Morzhovoi Bay – With parts of the bay last surveyed in the 1920s and 1950s, this survey project focuses on areas inadequate for safe navigation. Point Hope and Vicinity – Vessel traffic is increasing each year as sea ice recedes
Alaska Requests Limits on US Offshore Drilling
in the effort to achieve a vibrant offshore program in Alaska is creating the false impression that there is an imminent attempt to foster development along our entire coast,” Walker said in a statement. Proposed lease sales for other offshore regions in Alaska, in areas spanning the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, should be removed from the plan, Walker said. The Interior Department should also maintain long-established buffers for Native Inupiat whalers and a traditional 25-mile no-leasing buffer along the Chukchi coast, the statement said. Walker's comments echo those of the
February 2024
