NOAA Fisheries News Releases
NEWS RELEASE
February 4, 2008
Sheela McLean, Public Affairs
(907) 586-7032
Fishing Restrictions Lifted in Chiniak Gully
Researchers from NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center won't be gathering data about pollock abundance and distribution from the Chiniak Gully Research area in the Gulf of Alaska this year.
“We were using the Chiniak Gully Research area as a scientific control area,” said Doug DeMaster, Director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “We won't need that information this year, so we've rescinded the trawl closure in order to minimize impacts on the fishing industry.”
The long-term research project was designed to evaluate the effects of commercial fishing on pollock distribution and abundance as part of a comprehensive investigation of Steller sea lion and commercial fishery interactions.
“It's always good to get one more year's data,” said Alaska Fisheries Science Center researcher Chris Wilson, “but we have data from four years' studies plus a year's pilot project, and that's enough to start drawing some conclusions. In the face of budget constraints on funding and ship time, we decided to go ahead on our analysis rather than to wait and gather more data.”
Wilson and another Alaska Fisheries Science Center researcher, Anne Hollowed, have been leading the project.
Wilson explained that the past years' experiences would also allow them to design other experiments in the future to better understand the mechanisms driving the patterns observed in previous years' studies. Wilson said it's too soon to predict whether future work would require closures of Chiniak Gully or other areas.
A team of at least six scientists, working from the NOAA ship Miller Freeman, visited. Chiniak Gully during August and September of 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006.
The research cruises also provided opportunities for interns and teachers to participate in field research.
Commercial fishing was allowed in Barnabas Gully, which served as a treatment site while Chiniak Gully--with fishing prohibited--served as a control site. Scientists surveyed each gully multiple times immediately before and during the commercial fishery. They used a combination of acoustic and net sampling to estimate the distribution of fish (pollock, capelin and other species). In addition, they gathered other oceanographic information such as temperature, salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll.
The research cruises were generally successful although results in 2002 were disappointing because too little commercial fishing occurred in Barnabus Gully during the study that year.
Results from 2001 showed high variability in adult pollock biomass estimates among survey passes in the treatment area, but not in response to fishing. In contrast, results from 2004 showed a significant decrease in pollock biomass in the treatment area following the start of commercial fishing. Scientists observed no concurrent decrease in adult pollock biomass in the control area.
Scientists detected no differences in the vertical distribution of adult pollock from before to after the start of the fishery in either year. The data from 2006 are in the final stages of analysis and are currently being prepared for publication.
NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries Service) is dedicated to protecting and preserving our nation's living marine resources through scientific research, management, enforcement, and the conservation of marine mammals and other protected marine species and their habitat. To learn more about NOAA Fisheries in Alaska, please visit our websites at: alaskafisheries.noaa.gov or at: www.afsc.noaa.gov.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.