North Pacific Research Board

Fishes and Invertebrates

Alaska’s marine regions support an incredible bounty of fishes and invertebrates, on which are based the largest fisheries in the U.S.

NPRB supports research to improve our understanding of the distribution and population dynamics of fish stocks and how they are influenced by fishing and variability in their surrounding environment. Other issues of interest include overfishing, bycatch mitigation, and socio-economic considerations.

Fishes and Invertebrates research topics are consistent with those outlined in the NPRB Science Plan.

Research Highlights

Project 917: Crab bycatch mortality research spotlighted

snow crab

(Feb 2010) KUCB-TV Unalaska recently featured ongoing cooperative research between NOAA-NMFS and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Researchers want to learn the survival rates of female and sublegal male opilio, or snow crabs (right) that are caught and then returned to the water. See the KUCB report

Project 917 funds a cooperative effort between the crab fishing fleet and fishery scientists to quantify and reduce bycatch mortality. Using recently established procedures, scientists measure bycatch mortality on vessels fishing for snow crab in the Bering Sea. Read a February 2010 article in Fishermen's News that highlights this work.

Project 906: giant pacific octopusOctopus demand warrants further study

(Oct 2009) NPRB-funded researchers from NOAA and UAF are teaming up with divers to learn more about octopus in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Currently, there are no directed octopus fisheries except by special permit in state waters, but increasing market demand has prompted the need for further study so that fishery managers would have enough information to set catch limits should the need arise.

This study (Project 906) will examine the reproductive seasons and seasonal migration patterns of the giant Pacific octopus, one of several species found in Alaska. Right: giant Pacific octopus. (Stephen Jewett/UAF)