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Snailfish aren’t exactly the darling of the deep ocean. Long and pink, with a gelatinous coat that makes them more squishy than scaly, the females have a curious habit: they unceremoniously inject their eggs into the body cavity of Golden King crabs. UW junior Jennifer Gardner suspects it’s a small quirk of nature that could have a large impact on Alaska’s crab fishing industry. Read more about Jennifer’s research, and the support she receives from generous donors that makes her work possible.
Even with two fishing tournaments that harvest up to 50,000 lake trout every year from Flathead Lake, authorities from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes say angling alone isn’t making a significant enough dent in the population of the non-native species. The tribes have gathered a panel of experts, including SAFS‘ Dave Beauchamp, to examine how removal of the non-native trout might actually harm the native fishes in the lake. Read more here.
“The sea is a big place. Most fish are small. So it stands to reason that it is difficult to work out with any degree of accuracy just how many fish live in the sea. One way is to measure how many fish we pull out of it. But is that the best way? Or even an accurate way?” asks an editorial in this week’s (Feb. 21) issue of Nature.
The topic is featured on the cover of the journal and debated in two “Point/Counterpoint” commentaries, one jointly written by Ray Hilborn and Trevor Branch of the University of Washington, and the other by Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia. Read more here!
A new study by SAFS‘ Ray Hilborn and others finds that, of over 200 fish stocks, only 18% exhibit a potential harvest that relates to the stock’s abundance. More often related are environmental conditions; randomness is also a factor. Read more here.
 Salmon runs have boom and bust cycles on yearly, decadal, and century-long time scales, new study suggests.
New research shows that salmon abundance ebbs and flows not only over years and over decades, but over centuries as well. SAFS‘ Lauren Rogers, Peter Lisi, and Gordon Holtgrieve are co-authors; read more here!
 Image Source: Earth’sbuddy (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons Little is known about how much food salmon need, per river mile, to survive. And yet, chemicals, non-native (and some native) species, and habitat degradation all work to decrease the amount of food available to salmon. New research from SAFS‘ Robert Naiman, David Beauchamp, and others, suggests that there are currently too many young salmon in the Columbia River Basin, and not enough food. Check out this UW News story for more information about what this might mean for salmon restoration, or read their journal article!
In a two-day symposium in Anchorage in late October, scientists pondered as potential research priorities studies ranging from stock assessments to climate change, with a goal of strengthening low Chinook salmon runs around the state. This article explores the under-discussed but crucial issue of habitat degradation; ESS‘ David Montgomery is quoted.
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