The F/V Ocean Explorer. Click image for slideshow or check out the photo gallery.
Polar bear with cubs. Photo by Joao DoMar. Click image for slideshow or check out the photo gallery.

On 30 August 2008 Alaska Fisheries Science Center scientists in collaboration with scientists from University of Washington and University of Alaska successfully completed a historic research cruise to the Beaufort Sea. The project is funded by Minerals Management Service. This was the first focused effort to gather information on fishes in the offshore waters of the Beaufort Sea during the brief ice-free season. The only fish survey to occur in the offshore waters previous to this was opportunistic and took place in 1977 (Frost and Lowry, 1983). 

Our survey area was located between 155°W and 152°W, just east of Point Barrow, Alaska.  We conducted standardized bottom trawls, acoustic transects, oceanographic instrument casts (CTD), and zooplankton sampling. Some cruise highlights include encounters with a great deal of ice in the first week of the survey, seeing polar bears, and identifying 38 species of fish and 174 invertebrates, some of which may be new species.  A handful of fish species were identified as possible range extensions from the Bering Sea northward into the Beaufort Sea.  See the cruise report for more details and preliminary analysis, check out our photo gallery and online slide show , or download Alaska Public Radio Network's report.

For more details, contact Libby.Logerwell@noaa.gov at 206-526-4231 or Kimberly.Rand@noaa.gov at 206-526-6303.