Oceans

The Dungeness crab fall harvest for Southeast Alaska was about 150,000 pounds lighter than managers expected and it’s far below the five-year average.

Coral in an area in the Atlantic Ocean stretching from Connecticut to Virginia has been protected from deep-sea commercial fishing gear, by a new rule issued this week.

U.S. officials say an unmanned underwater vehicle was seized by a Chinese ship on Thursday, about 50 nautical miles from the Philippines, before the Navy ship operating the drone could retrieve it.

This year was 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than 1900. Also, water temperatures in the Arctic were 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the recent average.

A new lab in Sitka tests regularly for shellfish toxins and now is teaching more than a dozen tribes in the region to do the same. Global warming could increase the level of toxins, so tribes are working fast to take the mystery out of what’s blooming on their shores.

Kerttula helped two regions write the country’s first marine plans, and worked on some issues particularly important to Alaskans.