Background Articles

$513,000 was vetoed in state budget that would have looked into the origin of salmon caught by the Bering Sea pollock fleet.

As king salmon decline in the Bristol Bay region, changes to king salmon harvest include reduced bag limits, area closures, as well as the introduction of youth-only fisheries in the Naknek River.

Knik Tribe officials have found very high levels of the toxin which causes paralytic shellfish poisoning in samples from Southern Alaska mussels and clams — but they warn that parts of some fish, including king salmon, may also contain the toxin

A federal appeals panel issued a last-second ruling Wednesday that will allow this summer’s Southeast Alaska troll chinook salmon fishery to open as scheduled July 1.

The Bureau of Land Management, in partnership with the Salcha-Delta Soil and Water Conservation District and Trout Unlimited, are restoring mining-impacted streams along the upper Yukon River watershed. Projects will improve water quality and fish habitat along Nome and Wade Creeks.

It’s been a week since ice severed a fiber optic cable in the Arctic Ocean, cutting communications to several Northwest Alaska communities.

This film is for young people and anyone in the Northwest Arctic who is curious about how (and why) to siifish, and how to process the fish after catching.

Northern Europe is experiencing an unusual heat wave and drought, making the region more vulnerable to forest fires, with firefighters battling wildfires in Portugal, Spain, Croatia, and southern France, and temperatures expected to hit 86 degrees Fahrenheit in Finland, rare for a country straddling the Arctic Circle.

During the 1970's much of the Norwegian coastline was overfished. In the past, a kelp forest provided shelter and food for local sealife. Today, the seabed, along the Norwegian coastline is a sea urchin desert. Researchers, volunteers, and the "Kelp Keepers" in Tromso, are removing the sea urchins and rebuilding the kelp forest.

"Global-mean surface air temperatures for the first days of June 2023 were the highest in the ERA5 data record for early June by a substantial margin", said Copernicus. Some of the unit's data goes back as far as 1950.

Dispersants may break up an oil slick, sparing some birds and wildlife at the surface, but may increase the oil contamination for species that live lower in the water column. The toxicity of dispersants themselves is also a concern for cleanup workers and other wildlife. A group of Alaskans filed a lawsuit in 2020 to force the EPA to rewrite the rules to take into account research on the long-term effects of dispersants in Prince William Sound and elsewhere.

Now, for the first time, researchers have concrete evidence that northern pike could use the ocean to move between freshwater Alaska habitats.

Biologists and others are hoping that a new phone app will encourage Alaskans to help map fish species living in the state's rivers and streams.

A group of Indigenous communities from Alaska and B.C. has declared a state of emergency related to Pacific salmon populations, and says First Nations need to be more involved in managing traditional resources. 

Those studying ticks in Alaska currently are more concerned about non-native ticks hitching a ride on pets that arrive in the state from Outside, and infecting wildlife here.

Ice lies thick on the water as nuclear powered icebreakers "Sibir" and "Arktika" escort LNG carrier "Fedor Litke" into the Vilkitsky Strait en route to a Northeast Asian port.

Chinook (king) and chum are the major salmon species on the Yukon and Kuskokwim. They’ve been at historically low numbers in both rivers for years. The coho (silver) returns have also dropped.This will be the fourth year subsistence fishing has been closed or severely restricted on both rivers. The region is bracing for another dismal subsistence harvest.

For close to four millennia, "clam gardens" on beaches on the west coast of B.C. have provided First Nations with a supply of not just clams but other types of seafood. Scientific experimentation by researchers from Simon Fraser University, in collaboration with Coastal Salish First Nations, indicates clam gardens help sea life stay cooler. The research aims to show how ancient Indigenous practices offer a modern-day solution to coping with climate change.

The highly pathogenic disease circling the globe stands out for its effects on wild birds, and experts say Alaskans should be on the lookout for cases.

Hurtigruten Norway says the first zero-emission coastal cruise vessels will be sailing in 2030.