Walleye Pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) in salmon nets

Observation by Jaclyn Christensen:

Billie Shraffenberger is a longtime resident of Port Heiden and she has three children whose dad grew up in the community and this is the first time she caught a fish that looked like this one in her subsistence salmon net this summer. Here is pictured the singled out fish resembling what may be a pollock. Reports from commercial fisherman who are also from Port Heiden have seen similar fish in their salmon nets during the season in Pilot Point, AK. John Christensen Jr reports a pollock looking fish caught in his net was red in color and full of sores. He and three other captains (Jimmy Christensen, Mitch Seybert, and Morgan Fox) have sighted these fish floating and being caught in their nets during the same period this summer. The pollock were observed on the Northside and Southside of the Ugashik District. A few years ago Jaclyn Christensen has also picked a similar fish from the beach subsistence net in Port Heiden and filleted the fish and cooked its pale meat and was tasteless, a photo was taken and is on her Facebook.

Comments from LEO Editors:

This observation has been forwarded to Elizabeth Siddon, a Research Fisheries Biologist at NOAA. She is tracking pollock observations, which are a component of the Bering Sea Ecosystem Status Report. This report contains a variety of information and indicators of ecosystem health and is one mechanism that NOAA uses to provide ecosystem context to the management process and inform the quota-setting process.

Between 2001-2005, warm waters in the Bering Sea did not support the fat-rich plankton that young Walleye Pollock depend on as a primary source of nutrition. As a result, Walleye Pollock populations declined as the fish fed off of lower-fat plankton. Bearing Sea waters began to warm again in 2014, however the energy-rich plankton were able to thrive in cold water pools created where warm water met Arctic sea ice. These plankton provided enough nutrition for more young pollock to survive. Currently, the amount of pollock old enough to spawn are above target levels in the eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Source: NOAA Fisheries Alaska Pollock Species Profile, "Young Pollock Survival Better than Expected During Most Recent Bering Sea Warm Phase NOAA Fisheries Feature Story, June, 2017