Alaska scientists are studying salmon in the state’s northernmost waters.
Fisheries biologist Randy Brown of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Fairbanks handles a net used for dolly varden trout in northern Alaska.
Brown’s funding enabled UAF’s Peter Westley, Andy Seitz and others to study whether Pacific salmon are colonizing rivers of Alaska’s Arctic or whether fish seen there are just adventurous strays whose offspring have never survived because it’s just too cold up there. About 30 years ago, Brown and his family moved to Fairbanks, where he finished his graduate studies and became a fisheries biologist. He followed his interests to learn more about many species, including the chinook and chum salmon that people along the Yukon River are no longer able to harvest due to declining numbers.
During what Westley called “the most satisfying fieldwork of my life,” the biologists found seemingly dead-end channels entering both braided rivers. At the heads of those fingers were dark torpedoes — chum salmon that had laid eggs in the gravel.They captured a few of the spawned-out fish and collected their otoliths — bones in the head that can tell them a fish’s age and what waters it has lived in.
Even if it was, the young salmon would have to emerge early enough for food to be available for them. Then they would need to exit the rivers before sea ice formed on the northern ocean.
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Stimulus update: Direct payment worth $1,312 being sent from Alaska fund in five daysJack Birle is a breaking news reporter for the Washington Examiner. A 2022 graduate of Villanova University with majors in communication and political science, he has previous journalism experience with the Center Square and as a fellow with the National Journalism Center. He was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Southern California.
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