Alaska Fisheries Research Articles

Spatial community structure of groundfish is conserved across the Gulf of Alaska

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 626:145-160 (2019) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13050 Spatial community structure of groundfish is conserved across the Gulf of Alaska Rachael E. Blake1,*, Colette L. Ward1, Mary E. Hunsicker2, A. Ole Shelton3, Anne B. Hollowed4 1National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California Santa Barbara, 735 State Street, Suite 300, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, USA 2Fish Ecology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2032 SE OSU Drive, Newport, OR 97365, USA 3Conservation Biology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric, Administration, 2725 Montlake Blvd. E, Seattle, WA 98112, USA 4Resource Ecology and Fisheries Management Division, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, USA *Corresponding author: blake@nceas.ucsb.edu ABSTRACT: The mechanisms structuring patterns of diversity and community composition can be difficult to identify in large, open ecological systems. However, it is important to understand what drives these patterns at larger scales, especially in the face of climate change and other perturbations. The Gulf of Alaska (GOA) is an ideal study system because it has complex topography, climate-driven variability, and an on-going groundfish community survey. We used groundfish community data to examine the ecological theory underlying spatial diversity and community composition across 10 study areas in the GOA. We created geostatistically modeled groundfish abundance and biomass from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center trawl survey data (1984 to 2015) to address inherent errors in trawl observations. We found that species richness and alpha, beta, and functional diversity varied little both within and between study areas. However, turnover in community composition was significant along a longitudinal gradient, with differences driven by lower-abundance species. Fishing pressure had non-linear effects only on species richness and local diversity, while productivity was linearly related to beta diversity. We conclude that spatial patterns of diversity were not driven by disturbance, but were largely driven by environmental heterogeneity, because of the longitudinal turnover in community composition and high beta diversity (and thus low saturation). In addition, the invariant functional diversity but varying community composition together indicate functional redundancy in this ecosystem. Finally, the spatially invariant alpha and functional diversity show that the underlying community structure of the GOA groundfish community was conserved across this large marine ecosystem. KEY WORDS: Diversity · Community structure · Spatial invariance · Spatial insurance Full text in pdf format Supplement 1Supplement 2 PreviousNextCite this article as: Blake RE, Ward CL, Hunsicker ME, Shelton AO, Hollowed AB (2019) Spatial community structure of groundfish is conserved across the Gulf of Alaska. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 626:145-160. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13050 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 626. Online publication date: September 12, 2019 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2019 Inter-Research.

Spatial and temporal visualizations of satellite-derived sea surface temperatures for Alaska fishery management areas

Spatial and temporal visualizations of satellite-derived sea surface temperatures for Alaska fishery management areas

Thirty years of change and the future of Alaskan fisheries: Shifts in fishing participation and diversification in response to environmental, regulatory and economic pressures

AbstractHeterogeneity in human responses and decision‐making can contribute to the resilience of social–ecological systems in the face of environmental, political and economic pressures. In fishery systems worldwide, the ability of harvesters to maintain a diverse portfolio of fishing strategies is important for building adaptive capacity. We used a case‐study approach to examine the complexity of factors that inhibit or promote diversification in fisheries of Alaska, one of the major fishing regions of the world. Through a combination of harvest records and literature review, we explored shifts in participation and portfolio diversity in Alaskan fisheries over three decades. The four case‐studies examined the responses of fishers, fleets and communities to multiple, intersecting pressures, including biological declines, market and price dynamics, fishery privatization and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. These cases illustrate how stressors acting at multiple scales can encourage or constrain opportunities for diversification, and that these opportunities may be spread inequitably across participants. Overall, we found evidence for reduced participation and increasing specialization in Alaskan commercial fisheries. While numerous factors explain these trends, policies like individual quota systems and the increasing cost of entry into fisheries are forcing consolidation at local to regional scales. A portfolio approach to managing fisheries that reduces barriers to diversification and includes broad representation of resource users and communities in management may help to maintain opportunity and choice for fishers.

Range Extensions and New Records from Alaska and British Columbia for Two Skates, Bathyraja Spinosissima and Bathyraja Microtrachys

Recent deep-water surveys of the continental slope in the Bering Sea and the eastern North Pacific, conducted by the US National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, have broadened our understanding of the ichthyofauna in the region. Herein, we report significant new records of 2 species of skates based on morphological and molecular data. For Bathyraja spinosissima, the White Skate, we describe 2 specimens: a neonate male that constitutes a northern range extension for the species to Alaska in the Bering Sea; and an adult male representing a new record for the species in British Columbia. For B. microtrachys, the Fine-spined Skate, we describe 5 males taken in a single haul that represent the 1st record of the species in British Columbia. These specimens had been previously misidentified as B. violacea, the Okhotsk Skate, a species known only from the western Aleutian Islands and the western North Pacific.

Defining the economic scope for ecosystem-based fishery management

The emergence of ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) has broadened the policy scope of fisheries management by accounting for the biological and ecological connectivity of fisheries. Less attention, however, has been given to the economic connectivity of fisheries. If fishers consider multiple fisheries when deciding where, when, and how much to fish, then management changes in one fishery can generate spillover impacts in other fisheries. Catch-share programs are a popular fisheries management framework that may be particularly prone to generating spillovers given that they typically change fishers' incentives and their subsequent actions. We use data from Alaska fisheries to examine spillovers from each of the main catch-share programs in Alaska. We evaluate changes in participation-a traditional indicator in fisheries economics-in both the catch-share and non-catch-share fisheries. Using network analysis, we also investigate whether catch-share programs change the economic connectivity of fisheries, which can have implications for the socioeconomic resilience and robustness of the ecosystem, and empirically identify the set of fisheries impacted by each Alaska catch-share program. We find that cross-fishery participation spillovers and changes in economic connectivity coincide with some, but not all, catch-share programs. Our findings suggest that economic connectivity and the potential for cross-fishery spillovers deserve serious consideration, especially when designing and evaluating EBFM policies.

How “The Blob” affected groundfish distributions in the Gulf of Alaska

AbstractWe investigated the distributional shifts of groundfish in response to anomalous ocean conditions, particularly the recent anomalously warm period (2014–2016; “The Blob”), based on data from ten Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl surveys conducted by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center during 1996–2015. Six groundfish species were considered: Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus), arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias), walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus), Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus), northern rock sole (Lepidopsetta polyxystra), and southern rock sole (Lepidopsetta bilineata). Ontogenetic differences were examined by dividing data for each fish species into size classes. Our study demonstrated that after accounting for size‐specific depth preferences, the spatial responses of groundfish to anomalous ocean conditions differed by species and foraging guild in the central Gulf of Alaska. Pacific cod and arrowtooth flounder showed similar responses to ocean warming, but different responses to cooling. In general, Pacific cod moved to deeper depths in warmer years and moved to shallower depths in colder years. Arrowtooth flounder also moved deeper in warmer years. However, in colder years, large arrowtooth flounder (>40 cm) shifted toward shallower depths while smaller‐sized fish shifted toward deeper depths. In warmer years, large pollock (>30 cm) moved to deeper waters while smaller pollock (10–20 cm) moved to shallower waters. Pacific ocean perch exhibited an opposite response to thermal changes in habitat compared with Pacific cod and arrowtooth flounder. They moved deeper in colder years, but there was no clear change in depth as a function of size in response to warmer habitat.

Spatial trends and environmental drivers of epibenthic shelf community structure across the Aleutian Islands

The continental shelf around the Aleutian Islands supports important commercial and subsistence fisheries as well as multiple seabird and marine mammal populations. To sustainably manage these populations, more information is needed on the distribution of the benthic communities that support some of the top level consumers. Given the vast size and highly variable physical environment of the Aleutian Islands, it is likely that epibenthic community structure on the continental shelf will vary among geographic areas according to their physical and oceanographic conditions. This project examined spatial patterns in Aleutian epibenthic shelf communities among oceanographic regions (defined here as island groups separated by major oceanographic passes) and islands within these regions, and identified environmental drivers responsible for variation in these communities. Benthic trawls were conducted at 12 Aleutian islands that spanned four oceanographic regions to characterize epibenthic shelf community structure. Specifically, variability in shelf community structure among regions and islands within each region was examined for correlations with multiple environmental variables, including bottom water temperature, water depth, distance from shore, hydrodynamic exposure, bottom rugosity, sediment grain size, sediment chlorophyll content, and drift algal (i.e., food subsidies) biomass. Overall, these communities varied both among regions and among islands within regions. In particular, communities in the Far Western region (Near Strait to Buldir Strait) differed from communities in other regions, largely due to a high density of sand dollars in the Far West. However, none of the measured environmental characteristics explained this difference. Additionally, there was no evidence for a break in epibenthic shelf community structure across Samalga Pass between the East and the Central regions, even though this pass represents a biogeographic break for other Aleutian community types. Within the Central region, a soft-sediment community characterized by the flatfish Atheresthes spp. and the crabs Labidochirus splendescens and Chionoecetes bairdi distinguished Adak Island from other Central islands. Compared with groundfish trawl surveys conducted by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC), this study captured fewer fish but more invertebrate biomass, which is likely related to differences in the sampling gear used by the two studies. This study provides information on the distribution of Aleutian shelf communities that complement existing information from AFSC surveys. In particular, an important division in epibenthic shelf communities was observed across Buldir Strait. Furthermore, this study suggests that future assessments of Aleutian epibenthic communities should utilize multiple sampling gear types to better represent various epibenthic taxa.

Social Networks of Alaska Fishing Communities

Fishing community social networks function as channels for transfer of fishery knowledge, resources, and business transactions that help mitigate risks and shocks associated with altered access to fishery resources. Research on such networks in Alaska is limited despite their cultural importance and community reliance on fisheries. We contribute to scholarship of fishery social networks by assessing Alaska fishing community perspectives of challenges related to fisheries policy and management, and the existing social networks that aid in overcoming these challenges. Our findings show that the greatest challenges fishing communities face pertaining to fishery management are high costs of participating in catch share programs, restricted subsistence fishing activity due to decline in salmon, and complex regulations. Social networks exist for coping with these challenges; fishery information, and resources such as food, fuel and medicines are shared between communities. However, networks for accessing fishery support services are centralized in fewer larger communities and hubs such as Anchorage. Smaller and remote communities are the most compromised in this regard given the distance they must travel to access fishery support services. Leveraging social networks for sharing resources and improving fishery support services in smaller communities will increase their adaptive capacity and ability to maintain participation in Alaska fisheries.

Contribution of walleye pollock eggs to the Gulf of Alaska food web in spring

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 632:1-12 (2019) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13188 FEATURE ARTICLE Contribution of walleye pollock eggs to the Gulf of Alaska food web in spring Jens M. Nielsen*, Lauren A. Rogers, David G. Kimmel, Alison L. Deary, Janet T. Duffy-Anderson National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, USA *Corresponding author: jens.nielsen@noaa.gov ABSTRACT: Pulsed resources are prevalent phenomena in nature that can have disproportionally large and long-lasting effects on ecosystem production. Many fishes aggregate and spawn at high densities and release large amounts of resources to the environment in the form of eggs. These spawning events can provide pulsed dietary resources for a range of consumers; however, this is still an understudied topic particularly in the Gulf of Alaska food web. Here we assessed the magnitude and timing of eggs from walleye pollock Gadus chalcogrammus and their energy contribution to a highly productive ecosystem in Shelikof Strait, Gulf of Alaska. Our results show that aggregate spawning events of walleye pollock contribute considerably to the resource fluxes of this coastal food web in spring. Walleye pollock egg resources constituted on average 18.9% of April and 5.8% of May copepod production in the Shelikof Strait marine food web. In addition, the resource contributions from eggs appear 1 to 3 wk earlier than the spring peak rates of zooplankton production and thus occur at a time when equivalent dietary resources are still limited for many consumers. Our analysis showed that spawning events of walleye pollock provide an important pulsed resource subsidy in the Gulf of Alaska ecosystem. KEY WORDS: Egg boon · Trophic transfer · Gulf of Alaska · Ecosystem production · Fishes · Zooplankton · Walleye pollock · Gadus chalcogrammus Full text in pdf format Information about this Feature Article Supplementary material NextCite this article as: Nielsen JM, Rogers LA, Kimmel DG, Deary AL, Duffy-Anderson JT (2019) Contribution of walleye pollock eggs to the Gulf of Alaska food web in spring. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 632:1-12. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13188 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 632. Online publication date: December 12, 2019 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2019 Inter-Research.

Identifying the potential for cross-fishery spillovers: a network analysis of Alaskan permitting patterns

Many fishers own a portfolio of permits across multiple fisheries, creating an opportunity for fishing effort to adjust across fisheries and enabling impacts from a policy change in one fishery to spill over into other fisheries. In regions with a large and diverse number of permits and fisheries, joint-permitting can result in a complex system, making it difficult to understand the potential for cross-fishery substitution. In this study, we construct a network representation of permit ownership to characterize interconnectedness among Alaska commercial fisheries due to cross-fishery permitting. The Alaska fisheries network is highly connected, suggesting that most fisheries are vulnerable to cross-fishery spillovers from network shocks, such as changes to policies or fish stocks. We find that fisheries with similar geographic proximity are more likely to be a part of a highly connected cluster of susceptible fisheries. We use a case study to show that preexisting network statistics can be useful for identifying the potential scope of policy-induced spillovers. Our results demonstrate that network analysis can improve our understanding of the potential for policy-induced cross-fishery spillovers.

Assessing the potential for competition between Pacific Halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) and Arrowtooth Flounder (Atheresthes stomias) in the Gulf of Alaska

Pacific Halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) support culturally and economically important fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska, though recent decreases in mean size-at-age have substantially reduced fishery yields, generating concerns among stakeholders and resource managers. Among the prevailing hypotheses for reduced size-at-age is intensified competition with Arrowtooth Flounder (Atheresthes stomias), a groundfish predator that exhibited nearly five-fold increases in biomass between the 1960s and mid-2010s. To assess the potential for competition between Pacific Halibut and Arrowtooth Flounder, we evaluated their degree of spatiotemporal and dietary overlap in the Gulf of Alaska using bottom trawl survey and food habits data provided by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (NOAA; 1990 to 2017). We restricted analyses to fish measuring 30 to 69 cm fork length and used a delta modeling approach to quantify species-specific presence-absence and catch-per-unit-effort as a function of survey year, tow location, depth, and bottom temperature. We then calculated an index of spatial overlap across a uniform grid by multiplying standardized predictions of species’ abundance. Dietary overlap was calculated across the same uniform grid using Schoener’s similarity index. Finally, we assessed the relationship between spatial and dietary overlap as a measure of resource partitioning. We found increases in spatial overlap, moving from east to west in the Gulf of Alaska (eastern: 0.13 ± 0.20; central: 0.21 ± 0.11; western: 0.31 ± 0.13 SD). Dietary overlap was low throughout the study area (0.13 ± 0.20 SD). There was no correlation between spatial and dietary overlap, suggesting an absence of resource partitioning along the niche dimensions examined. This finding provides little indication that competition with Arrowtooth Flounder was responsible for changes in Pacific Halibut alHHsize-at-age in the Gulf of Alaska; however, it does not rule out competitive interactions that may have affected resource use prior to standardized data collection or at different spatiotemporal scales.

Bottom trawl surveys in the northern Bering Sea indicate recent shifts in the distribution of marine species

The climate regime in the eastern Bering Sea has recently been dominated by a pattern of multi-year stanzas, in which several successive years of minimal sea-ice formation and warm summer temperatures (e.g., 2002–2005, 2014–2017) alternate with several years of relatively extensive sea-ice formation and cold summer temperatures (e.g., 2006–2013). This emerging climate pattern may be forcing long-term changes in the spatial distributions of the Bering Sea’s marine fauna. The National Marine Fisheries Service’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center recently conducted two bottom trawl surveys covering the entire Bering Sea shelf from the Alaska Peninsula to the Bering Strait. The first, in the summer of 2010, was conducted during a cold year when the majority of the continental shelf was covered by a pool of cold (< 2 °C) water. The second, in the summer of 2017, was during a warmer year with water temperatures above the long-term survey mean. These two surveys recorded significantly different spatial distributions for populations of several commercially important fish species, including walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus), Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus), and several flatfish species, as well as jellyfishes. Population shifts included latitudinal displacement as well as variable recruitment success. The large-scale distributional shifts reported here for high-biomass species raise questions about long-term ecosystem impacts, and highlight the need for continued monitoring. They also raise questions about our management strategies for these and other species in Alaska’s large marine ecosystems.

A Status Review of Pinto Abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana) Along the West Coastof North America: Interpreting Trends, Addressing Uncertainty, and Assessing Risk for a Wide-Ranging Marine Invertebrate

Pinto abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana), the widest ranging abalone species in North America, occurs from Alaska, United States to Central Baja California, Mexico. The species has been observed in intertidal and subtidal habitats from 0 to 40mdepth. The best available data indicate that pinto abalone abundance has declined in many areas throughout the species' range due to fisheries harvest. Subsistence and personal use fisheries in Alaska and a commercial fishery in Mexico persist. Preliminary data from 2008 to 2016 indicate signs of recovery for some pinto abalone populations along the British Columbia coast due to multiple contributing factors including a reduction in illegal harvest, natural recovery following fishery closure, and low predation pressure. By contrast, pinto abalone populations at the San Juan Islands in Washington are experiencing recruitment failure and continuing to decline, despite closure of the fisheries and no evidence of poaching. Throughout the remainder of the species' range, trends are less clear, due to the lack of regular, long-term monitoring surveys for pinto abalone. The limited data from surveys and/or opportunistic sightings indicate that pinto abalone populations are small, patchily distributed, and/or fluctuate episodically in Alaska, California, and Mexico, with evidence of recent recruitment in a number of locations within these three areas. Baseline abundance and trend data for the species before the advent of commercial fisheries and, in some areas, the local extirpation of sea otters is lacking. Without a clear baseline with which to compare the current abundance levels and trend information, it is difficult to interpret what these levels mean for the status and viability of the species. Threats to pinto abalone were evaluated and characterized using a qualitative rating (i.e., low, moderate, high, very high) based on the threats' scope, severity, and persistence and the sufficiency of the data to support the rating. Several threats that posed a moderate level of risk to pinto abalone were identified including the following: low densities as a result of historical overfishing; the potential threat posed by ocean acidification; and illegal take because of poaching and inadequate law enforcement. The overall risk that pinto abalone face throughout their range was evaluated, and it was determined that they have a low to moderate level of extinction risk now and in the foreseeable future (over both the 30-y and 100-y time horizons). There is a high level of uncertainty regarding demographic factors, in particular regarding whether abundance and productivity levels are sufficient to support the persistence and recovery of the species in the face of continuing and potential future threats. Although recruitment failure may be occurring in some areas (e.g., San Juan Islands Archipelago), in other areas throughout the range recurring and/or recent recruitment events have been observed, despite low densities, and have even resulted in increased densities (across all size classes) at several index sites in British Columbia. Limitations in using demographic data to guide conservation actions and help ensure species persistence could be overcome by conducting consistent monitoring of pinto abalone populations throughout their range.

Long-term marine mammal occurrence in the Distributed Biological Observatory 2010–2015

The Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) is a set of eight biological hotspot areas spanning latitudinally from the Northern Bering Sea to the Canadian Beaufort Sea. The DBO is an international collaboration between researchers from the United States, Japan, Canada, China, South Korea, and Russia that work in the Alaskan Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas; all research vessels passing through one of the DBO regions collect biophysical data (i.e., temperature, salinity, sea ice concentration and thickness, chlorophyll, nutrients, and zooplankton occurrence) along a pre-described line of sampling stations. Since the pilot study in 2010, and with funding from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Marine Mammal Laboratory at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center of NOAA has maintained passive acoustic recorder moorings at two of the DBO regions, colocated with oceanographic moorings from the Pacific Marine Science Center (P. Stabeno). This coverage was expanded to five DBO regions in 2012, again with colocated oceanographic moorings at four of the sites. Here, an interannual comparison of the long-term mooring results from gray, bowhead, beluga, humpback, and killer whales, walrus, ribbon and bearded seals, and vessel and seismic airgun noise will be presented and compared with the sampled biophysical data.

Resurrecting the public record: Assessing stakeholder participation in Alaska's fisheries

Stakeholder participation is lauded as a key component of successful fisheries management, but few studies have characterized and assessed this participation. Using integrated data digitization and coding methods, this paper tests out a new method to analyze archived management proposals submitted to Alaska's Board of Fish and explores whether this approach can be used to assess stakeholder participation and success rates in Cook Inlet, Bristol Bay, and Southeast Alaska from 2000 to 2015. This pilot study asks the question, “Are there differences in user participation and success rates across the three regions during this time period?”

Autumn distribution of Bristol Bay red king crab using fishery logbooks.

Spatial distributions of fished species must be well characterized to avoid local depletions, identify critical habitat, and predict and mitigate interactions with other fisheries. The Bristol Bay red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) fishery is one of the largest crab fisheries in Alaska. Summer crab distributions have been well documented by decades of bottom trawl surveys. However, crab movement and distribution are poorly understood outside the summer survey period, which creates several management challenges. One important component of fishery management is the existence of no-trawl zones, which are intended to protect crab from bottom trawl fisheries. However, it is difficult to evaluate the placement of no-trawl zones, because most crab bycatch occurs in trawl fisheries during winter when crab distributions are unknown. Daily fishing logs, kept by skippers in the red king crab fleet since 2005, contain detailed information on the spatial distribution of catch and effort of legal sized male crab during the autumn crab fishery. However, data contained in these hand-written logbooks have not been readily accessible. We digitized daily fishing logs from 2005 to 2016 and used spatial information on catch and effort to infer geographic distributions of legal sized male king crab during the crab fishing season. Changes in distribution were tracked across this 12-yr period and comparisons were made between warm and cold temperature regimes. In warm years (2005, 2014–2016), crab aggregated in the center of Bristol Bay, Alaska, while in cold years (2007–2013) they were closer to the Alaska Peninsula. The majority of crab were caught in no-trawl areas (63.4% on average), but variations occurred among years and with temperature regime (40.0–86.8% in no-trawl zones). As temperatures continue to shift in the Bering Sea, it will be important to continue monitoring crab distributions outside the summer survey period.

Managed out of existence: over-regulation of Indigenous subsistence fishing of the Yukon River

Humans are adversely affected by the loss of vital fishery resources, specifically Indigenous peoples and the traditional knowledge systems that are foundationally tied to their culture. Discounting the ability and knowledge of Indigenous peoples stems from concepts rooted in “Tragedy of the Commons” in which a shared resource, in this case fisheries, if left unchecked will be destroyed by the mismanagement of users. The Alaskan fisheries policy regime is recognized as one of the best managed and influential fisheries in the world, but the state is predominantly driven by a conservation approach that discounts other knowledge systems. Alaskan Native fishers, for example the Gwich’in, who maintain a sustainable 30,000 year (conservatively) relationship with their environment, possess culturally specific Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) that is a result of the mechanisms or physical act of fishing, thus giving meaning to the term we will use in this paper, Indigenous Fishers’ Knowledge (IFK). Alaskan Natives along the Yukon River derive specific knowledge about their environment and King Salmon through the act of fishing. TEK is not static nor is IFK as it is transmitted to younger generations through the practice of fishing. TEK and IFK play a large role in the transmission and acquisition of knowledge, they both connect knowledge to culture and play a role in creating culture and traditions, they are in fact very intricate systems. Indigenous fishers seek inclusion and involvement that does not separate them from their knowledge but recognizes and implements their practices/control on a local level.

The impact of catch shares on multiregional fishery participation and effort: The case of west coast harvesters in the Alaska fisheries

Rationalization in fisheries has been shown to lead to the slowing of fishing activity, input and effort consolidation, cost savings, and new market and product development. The effects of rationalization on fishermen's behavior become more complex when one accounts for the spillover effects that catch share programs can create in other fisheries and regions. Recently available annual costs and earnings data allow us to quantify the average marginal effects of the U.S. West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program on fisheries in Alaska. Empirical results indicate that the primary drivers of harvest in the Alaska fisheries are vessel size and operating costs for catcher vessels that deliver to West Coast mothership processors and shoreside processing plants. Rationalization does not appear to have a statistically significant impact on whether and to what extent catcher vessels that are endorsed to fish in both regions actually fish in Alaska. The advent of catch shares on the West Coast has in effect harmonized fishery management across the two regions. Conditional on fishing in Alaska, the advent of catch shares in the West Coast groundfish trawl fishery has lengthened the number of days at sea in Alaska for the West Coast catcher vessels that participate in the Alaska fisheries. This result is in line with the fact that after rationalization, catcher vessels have increasingly harvested in one region rather than fishing in both regions.

Visualizations of groundfish distributions from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center bottom trawl surveys

Visualizations of groundfish distributions from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center bottom trawl surveys

Will Alaska's Fisheries Regime Prove Resilient? Kenai River Fishery Management as a Model for Adaptive Governance

Will Alaska's Fisheries Regime Prove Resilient? Kenai River Fishery Management as a Model for Adaptive Governance