"Status of Stocks and Multispecies Assessment Program"

The Status of Stocks and Multispecies Assessment Program, Fishery Interaction Team, was formed to investigate the effects of commercial fishing on top trophic level consumers.

The Status of Stocks and Multispecies Assessment Program, Fishery Interaction Team, was formed to investigate the effects of commercial fishing on top trophic level consumers.

The ACLIM project represents a comprehensive, collaborative effort by NOAA Fisheries and partners to characterize and project climate-driven changes to the Bering Sea ecosystem, from physics to fishing communities. The goal is to provide decision-makers with information on how different fisheries management approaches might attenuate or amplify climate-driven changes to fish and shellfish populations.

The Alaska Climate Integrated Modeling project (ACLIM) is an interdisciplinary collaboration to project and evaluate climate impacts on marine fisheries in the Bering Sea, Alaska.

The eastern Bering Sea was characterized by anomalously warm conditions in 2018. Over the northern shelf, an unprecedented near-complete lack of sea ice occurred; the southeastern shelf had no sea ice and no cold pool (footprint of winter sea ice persisting as cold bottom water the following summer, less than

Walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus; Coulson et al. 2006; Carr and Marshall 2008; here after pollock) are distributed throughout the Aleutian Islands (AI) with concentrations in areas and depths dependent on diel and seasonal migration. The population of pollock in the AI decreased in abundance from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s (1986 bottom trawl survey estimate of 444,000 t to a 1994 bottom trawl survey estimate of 78,000 t). Since 1994 the abundance point estimate has been variable, but considering the variance of the survey estimates the trend appears relatively flat (Fig 1A.1). The 2012 survey abundance was a record low at 44,281 t. The 2014 survey abundance estimate at 85,316 t nearly doubled the 2012 estimate. The 2016 biomass estimate was similar to 2014 at 83,070 t, but the 2018 survey biomass estimate was double that of the previous survey at 165,747 t. The low 2012 estimate is thought to be anomalous due to the very low temperatures in the region affecting availability of the species to the bottom trawl survey. The precipitous decline between 1986 and 1991 may be in part due to undocumented fishing by foreign vessels claiming catch from the Central Bering Sea (CBS), as the documented fishing levels alone cannot account for the decline (Table 1A.1). A number of foreign fishing vessels were observed fishing in the AI during this time period (Egan 1988a; Egan 1988b) while claiming catch from the CBS. Since 2004surveys show that the AI pollock population has been predominantly concentrated in the eastern portion of the Aleutian Island chain, closer to the Eastern Bering Sea shelf. Surveys from the 1980’s and 1990’s estimated higher proportions of pollock biomass in the central and western Aleutians (Fig 1A.1). This spatial change in population abundance may reflect a spatial contraction of the stock in the Eastern Bering Sea after the collapse of the Central Bering Sea population in the early 1990’s, low AI pollock recruitments since the mid 1980’s, documented higher exploitation rate of the AI pollock in the mid- to late 1990’s, and possibly a high undocumented exploitation rate in the late 1980’s by foreign fishers.

The goals of the Ecosystem Status Reports are to: (1) provide stronger links between ecosystem research and fishery management and (2) spur new understanding of the connections between ecosystem components by bringing together the results of diverse research efforts into one document. Beginning in 2016, we split the report into four separate documents, one for the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, eastern Bering Sea, and the Arctic.

The goals of the Ecosystem Status Reports are to (1) provide stronger links between ecosystem research and fishery management and to (2) spur new understanding of the connections between ecosystem components by bringing together the results of diverse research efforts into one document. Beginning in 2016, we split the report into four separate documents, one for the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, eastern Bering Sea, and the Arctic.

The goals of the Ecosystem Status Reports are to (1) provide stronger links between ecosystem research and fishery management and (2) spur new understanding of the connections between ecosystem components by bringing together the results of diverse research efforts into one document. Beginning in 2016, we split the report into four separate documents, one each for the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, eastern Bering Sea, and the Arctic.

The goals of the Ecosystem Considerations report are to (1) provide stronger links between ecosystem research and fishery management and to (2) spur new understanding of the connections between ecosystem components by bringing together the results of diverse research efforts into one document. Beginning in 2016, we split the report into four separate documents, one for the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, eastern Bering Sea, and the Arctic.