Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI)

Kevin Bailey, Ric Brodeur, Miriam Doyle, Steve Hammond (teleconference), Al Hermann, Anne Hollowed, Art Kendall, Pat Livingston, Allen Macklin, Bern Megrey, Ron Reed, Phyllis Stabeno, Cyndy Tynan, Tina Wyllie-Echeverria, Elaina Jorgensen rapporteur.

• FOCI is considering hosting a workshop to look at anomalous conditions in the Bering Sea. It will be a small workshop similar to the El Nino and Pacific Ecosystem workshops. Art Kendall and Phyllis Stabeno are developing a prospectus.

• SEBSCC PI annual reports are due to Allen Macklin in web-ready electronic format on 21 August.

• SEBSCC's annual PI meeting will be held following the PICES meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska, on  Saturday 24 October 1998.

• Delayed funding for phase 2 of SEBSCC is due to the requirement for the announcement of opportunity to be made in the Federal Register. Coastal Ocean Program's general announcement should appear in the register soon, followed closely by the SEBSCC announcement.  SEBSCC's announcement must run for 30 days, and proposals will be due at the end of that period, approximately 1 October 1998.

• The FOCI lunch seminar series begins Thursday 3 September 1998. Three openings remain for speakers this fall.  To schedule a seminar, contact Kurt Zegowitz.

• Oshoro Maru Cruise - Participants on the Oshoro Maru cruise reported that the distribution of pollock seems low this year relative to the last four years. They also reported another coccolithophorid bloom, located north of St. Paul Island. The change in water color was visibly noticeable. New bongo stations were sampled for micro- and meso- zooplankton. In general, the cruise was a success.

• Professor Kaganovsky - The Russian ship the Professor Kaganovsky is scheduled as the platform for this September’s juvenile pollock cruise.

Chris Blackburn of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank reports that Gulf of Alaska pollock from the 1994 year class are thinner than normal.  Because of their size, these pollock do not  "fit" commercial processing equipment, and this has made it difficult for fishermen to fill their quota this summer.

FOCI and NMFS have information that can be used to address the report.  Following its substantiation,  researchers will explore why the fish are smaller. Is it a matter of density dependence or due to overall lack of prey?  Preliminary observations from the hake survey indicate that  hake are also relatively thinner. The Bering Sea salmon fisheries are also having a low return this year with smaller than normal fish. Is this trend toward small individuals an ocean-wide occurrence?

FOCI researchers will work with Anne Hollowed, Chris Wilson, and other NMFS personnel to explore this interesting problem.
 

The next FOCI PI meeting will be held at 10:00 a.m. Thursday 10 September 1998, in the Cloud Chamber (Bldg. 3, Rm. 2065).

Please mail corrections to the FOCI Coordinator.
 

U.S. Dept. of Commerce / NOAA / OAR / ERL / PMEL