"Research in Alaska"

Through an Inter-Agency agreement (IA) between the National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NMML is conducting a dedicated multi-year study to determine relationships between dominant currents passing from the Bering Sea into and through the Chukchi Sea and prey resources delivered to the Barrow Arch area (an area of high bowhead whale and prey concentrations between Wainwright and Smith Bay), and to provide information about the dynamic nature of those relationships relative to whale distribution and habitat utilization in the eastern Chukchi and extreme western Beaufort Seas. This study will also provide important baseline data on the occurrence, distribution and habitat use of large whales in an area that is subject to rapid change in climate and human industrial development. This quarterly report covers the first period of this study between 25 July and 30 September 2012. The major activity during this period consisted of purchasing equipment, deploying the first set of longterm moorings, and opportunistically tagging a gray whale during the Chukchi Sea Acoustics, Oceanography, and Zooplankton (CHAOZ) cruise on 25 August, 2012. The CHAOZ cruise took place from 8 August through 7 September on the chartered research vessel R/V Aquila. Seventeen scientists, technicians, and observers from eight different laboratories and institutions participated on the CHAOZ cruise.

Through an Inter-Agency agreement (IA) between the National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NMML is conducting a dedicated multi-year study to determine relationships between dominant currents passing from the Bering Sea into and through the Chukchi Sea and prey resources delivered to the Barrow Arch area (an area of high bowhead whale and prey concentrations between Wainwright and Smith Bay), and to provide information about the dynamic nature of those relationships relative to whale distribution and habitat utilization in the eastern Chukchi and extreme western Beaufort Seas. This study will also provide important baseline data on the occurrence, distribution and habitat use of large whales in an area that is subject to rapid change in climate and human industrial development. This annual report covers the first year of this study between March and December 2012. The major activity during this period consisted of planning for the 2013 vessel survey.

Special Publications on Fish Age Determination and Otolith Symposia.

Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report

Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report.

The northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) population in the Pribilof Islands Archipelago (on St. Paul and St. George Islands, Figs. 1-3) makes up approximately 50% of the world population. Smaller breeding colonies are located on the Kuril and Commander Islands in Russia, Bogoslof Island (Figs. 1 and 4) in the southeastern Bering Sea, and San Miguel Island (Fig. 5) off California. The rookeries at San Miguel and Bogoslof Islands probably originated in the late 1950s (DeLong 1982) and 1980 (Lloyd et al. 1981), respectively.

Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report

In 1953, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) (43 USC 1331-1356) charged the U.S. Secretary of the Interior with the responsibility for administering minerals exploration within and development of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The Act empowered the Secretary to formulate regulations so that its provisions could be met. The OCSLA Amendments of 1978 (43 USC 1802) established a policy for the management of oil and natural gas in the OCS and for protection of the marine and coastal environments. The amended OCSLA states that the Secretary of the Interior shall conduct studies in areas or regions of sales to ascertain the “environmental impacts on the marine and coastal environments of the Outer Continental Shelf and the coastal areas which may be affected by oil and gas development” (43 USC 1346).

Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report

Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report