With a bleak salmon return this year in Northwest Alaska, a lifelong fisherman reflects on a season marked by empty nets and big questions.

Alaska wildlife officials collaborated with whale experts to successfully rescue a humpback whale that was entangled in crabbing gear off the coast of Gustavus, Alaska, preventing it from dying.

An unprecedented outbreak of sea lice in Tálknafjörður has led to the loss, or the need to dispose of, at least one million salmon. “Nobody has seen anything like this before. There is a Norwegian veterinarian who has been working in Iceland because of this and he has never seen anything like this in his 30-year career,” Karl Steinar observed.

Invasive Elodea has been observed since 2020.

Elodea found on and near Eielson Airforce Base

Invasive elodea decade history in the Chena slough with mitigation and persistent infestation.

The snow crab harvest in Alaska has been canceled for the second year in a row due to concerns about population sustainability, but red king crab and Tanner crab will be available for commercial fishermen this season. Last year was the first time in history the U.S. snow crab fishery was closed. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said the harvests were closed over concerns about long-term conservation and the sustainability of crab stocks.

October flew by leaving us with a couple of light snowfalls. November came around with something slightly more impressive, but it wasn't the same. Mid December decided to make up for all of the snowfalls that we missed all at once, it seems like.

Record-setting drought conditions have left many of B.C’s streams and waterways too low for salmon to swim up to spawn. Heiltsuk First Nation leaders say hundreds of fish were found rotting in a creek in Bella Bella, B.C., usually teeming by fall with migrating pink and chum salmon.

Ali Ralson was riding her 4 Wheeler towards Cape Blossom and came upon a beach full of fish. It appears that most of the fish are stickleback although there may be other species involved too. This would suggest an environmental issue that would impact multiple fish species rather than a pathogen. One potential cause could be harmful algal toxins.

Scientists from B.C.’s provincial government are investigating a spike in dead sturgeons after 11 adult fish were found dead on the Nechako River over the past week.

The Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) has found evidence of infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) in an open-net salmon farm in Reyðarfjörður fjord, East Iceland. ISA is a highly infectious viral disease that has no treatment and causes high mortality in farmed Atlantic salmon.

Not a single catch was reported in the village of Chefornak. Meanwhile in Kivalina, dozens and dozens of tomcods are pictured and posted on "The Alaska Life" Facebook page.

Scientists now say that the harmful alga will survive the winter and that it will probably turn green in the Oslo fjord next year as well.

Vetle Berntsen and the others on the trawler understood little when the black fish ended up on board. No wonder – the fish actually live in deep water around the equator. It turned out to be Diretmichthys parini, also known as ducat fish, one of three documented in Norway.

The oil likely will continue to encroach on Orange County beaches for the next few days, officials said.

Karen Dunmall, a biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said pink salmon normally prefer warmer waters than the Arctic has been able to provide. But with the Arctic warming at up to three times the rate of the rest of the world, its waters are becoming more approachable for newcomers like this species.

It happened Thursday night and into Friday morning, when the Crown corporation reduced the spill release from the Daisy Lake Reservoir into the river, stranding fish who had moved closer to the banks.

In 2009, the numbers dropped down to just 500 pairs of Chinook returning. Yet, as of Tuesday, more than 8,000 Chinook had returned to their Cowichan River spawning grounds. The improvement is the result of years of conservation efforts by Cowichan Tribes, who have worked to restore the river to its course before logging operations changed the river.

King and snow crab populations in the Bering Sea have plummeted ahead of the harvest season, some by 99% compared to previous years.