Background Articles

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has allowed for 1,500 grey seals to be hunted in the Baltic Sea and 630 harbour seals on the west coast.

Potential new limits on the accidental catch of chum salmon by pollock trawlers are still years away from being implemented.

First Nations groups in the Yukon Territory and Alaska GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration are advancing discussions about whether hatcheries could help stem a steep crash in salmon populations on the Yukon River.

Large, high-fat copepods — distantly related to shrimp and crab — are dwindling and loosing fat with the lack of sea ice from global warming.

Taking care of Hawaii's unique natural environment takes time, people and money. Now Hawaii wants tourists to help pay for it.

Coordinating teams to collect and sort marine debris, plus shipping it to a landfill or recycling center is an expensive logistical nightmare as Alaska waters increase with marine debris.

"Siku" means sea ice in the Siberian Yup'ik language. But about a hundred other Yup'ik words describe different types of sea ice, including icebergs, floating pressure ice ridges, solid ice safe for travel — and "pequ," "an unsuitable area in ice field where the current causes ice to heave up or break up," Vera Metcalf said.

Story telling provides a powerful tool in a changing climate. Epen Hobson has been experiencing the land and ocean through the perspective of an Inuit photographer and hunter. A recipient of the Arctic Resilient Communities Fellowship he shares, "We're an oral people, we tell stories, we teach by telling stories," The effects of climate change are concrete and dramatic for the Arctic communities such as Utqiagvik, and Hopson is hungry to see infrastructure and policy solutions to address them.

Wednesday was the annual test of Alaska’s tsunami warning system — but Homer, Kenai, Ketchikan, Kodiak, Sitka and Unalaska didn't hear it at all.

The ice outside of Kotzebue in the sound and further out into the Bering Sea is more like May Ice then March ice.

Questions still linger about what caused the bear to kill a woman and her baby — but more important for Wales is the question of how to move on.

Take a typical Alaska cruise and see the damage in its wake. Waste-water disposal to on board garbage piles up leaking into the natural environment and local waste sites. Noise pollution from the ships impact whales and other species that rely on sounds for communication. Total visitors from the industry impact on small communities has pros and cons. The evidence is clear: the industry needs an overhaul.

World leaders already have many options to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and protect people, according to the United Nations report.

A loose raft of brown seaweed spanning about twice the width of the U.S. is inching across the Caribbean. Among annual Sargassum censuses in the Atlantic Ocean, “2018 was the record year, and we’ve had several big years since,” says Brian Lapointe, an oceanographer at Florida Atlantic University, who has studied seaweed for decades. “This is the new normal, and we’re going to have to adapt to it.”

The lawmakers discussed the challenges faced by Alaska’s fishermen in a remote address to Kodiak’s annual commercial fishing trade show.

The Barents area is the fastest warming place on the planet. A new study shows that the warming is happening twice as fast as previously thought.

With ice declining, bowhead whales of the Pacific Arctic choose to stay longer in the waters up north. A change in migration patterns could affect the bowheads' health and safety, as well as the hunters' access to the subsistence resource.

Seen as a bright spot in a troubled coastal economy, seaweed cultivation must overcome many obstacles to become big business in Alaska.

The Baltic Sea is experiencing a reduction in ice due to climate change, with this winter seeing significantly less ice compared to previous years.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced preseason fishing limits and closures Thursday as chinook numbers continue to decline. The closure also triggers commercial setnet shutdowns.