Western

Researchers think they’ve found a new species of whale in Western Alaska. A new study published in Marine Mammal Science is identifying the find as a relative of the Baird’s beaked whale.

It doesn’t have an official name yet. Researchers aren’t quite that far along in the process of actually cataloging a new species. But it isn’t a brand new creature, either. In fact, Japanese whalers have long called it Katasu, or raven.

Philip Morin is a molecular geneticist with NOAA. His work on the genetic level was a key in making the discovery.

“This species, the new beaked whale, has probably been around for at least several million years,” he said.

This “new” type has actually been identified before, just incorrectly. Over the years, carcasses and skeletons have simply been pegged as juvenile or dwarf Baird’s beaked whales, but they are noticeably darker in color. A closer look at the genes led Morin and the rest of the team to conclude they were really looking at something altogether different.

“We looked at Baird’s beaked whale species samples from all across the North Pacific and the amount of difference, even between animals found in Japan versus northern Mexico, was very small. Compare that to the difference between the animals that we identified as this new species, it was an order of magnitude higher. They’re much more different from each other than animals within each species,” he said.

Morin’s work was important because typically, a new species is identified through a lot of taxonomy work. Lots of physical samples are brought in and studied, the differences noted and eventually we get a new species. But specimens of this type are rare. It took a lot of detective work to find what is out there.

Paul Wade is a research biologist for NOAA’s marine mammal laboratory. He’s spent years canvassing the Bering Sea for whales and he contributed to the pool of samples used for the genetic testing.

He says this latest discovery opens the door for a lot more questions, the first of which is where exactly these small, black beaked whales live.

“Kind of from Dutch Harbor to the west and north of the Aleutian Island chain is a deep water basin in the Bering Sea. Everything going over to where you are in Dillingham is very shallow water on the Bering Sea shelf and that’s not where you would find these whales,” he said.

“But once you get past the Pribilof Islands, the shelf edge breaks off there and goes into deep water. And so maybe this is a whale that’s primarily found in that deep ocean basin in the Bering Sea there,” he added.

Research on this project started a couple years ago when one of the whales washed up onshore at St. George in the Pribilofs in June of 2014.

Western Alaska just got one step closer to high-speed internet.

That’s because, after years of planning and wrangling permits, Quintillion is finally ready to lay fiber optic cable from Prudhoe Bay to Nome. The telecom company has one vessel stationed in the Bering Sea and another close behind.

The Ile de Brehat has left its homeport in France, passed through the Panama Canal, and will soon arrive in Nome. That’s where the vessel will start laying a path of fiber optic cable below the sea floor — a path that will wind more than a thousand miles up to the North Slope.

Right now, though, the ship is docked in Dutch Harbor, and a group of Quintillion’s executives and investors is climbing aboard.

“This is the cable ship Ile de Brehat,” said Captain Charles Souffre. “So first of all, welcome on board, all of you.”

Souffre is in charge of the nearly 500-foot-long vessel and its 70-member crew.

They run the ship on behalf of Alcatel Submarine Networks, the French company Quintillion hired to make and lay the cable system. They’ll start trenching outside of Nome any day now, and the operation will run 24 hours a day through September, relying on a careful configuration of multimillion-dollar equipment.

As Souffre explained to the group, all of that time, money, and manpower really comes down to one thing: protecting thin filaments of glass.

“This is the fiber,” he said. “This one is only for deep water. And this cover is to send power inside the cable to monitor the integrity of the system.”

That’s crucial. The fiber optic system is supposed to last 25 years or longer, supporting a delicate process that allows phone and computer data to ride light waves across the glass fibers of the cable.

It has to work, and it has to be fast. So Souffre said his team will test the cable constantly as they install it by running an electrical current through the entire system and reading the signal from start to finish. If it’s not clear, they stop the ship and fix the problem.

But Souffre said there shouldn’t be too many problems. His crew will lay the cable along a carefully chosen route, developed over two seasons of marine surveys. There are underwater cameras on all the equipment — and cable detectors too, if visibility is poor in murky waters. The whole operation is run from countless monitors and control boards on the ship’s bridge.

“It’s like a big PlayStation,” he said.

But community leaders say that big PlayStation will have an even bigger impact on rural Alaska, where people are still dealing with internet at dial-up speed.

Reggie Joule is a former state legislator and mayor of the Northwest Arctic Borough, and now he’s Kotzebue’s liaison for the Quintillion project.

Looking around the ship at tanks full of fiber optic cable, Joule said high-speed internet is going to be “momentous,” especially for rural economies.

“If we have somebody who can make widgets in one of our communities, but has no outlet — the internet can get the skill of that individual and provide them with a market,” he said. “That changes the economy of places where there aren’t economies, potentially.”

Joule said fast internet will also help rural communities provide better healthcare and education through telemedicine and online learning services.

Unalaska City Manager Dave Martinson agreed.

“Having high-speed internet here will enhance our abilities to do our jobs across the board — whether you’re an educator, a doctor, or a shipping company,” said Martinson.

But Unalaska isn’t getting fiber optic cable. At least, not yet.

Quintillion’s ships will pass through the port, and the company plans to store extra cable on the island in case of emergencies. But for right now, just six communities are getting fiber: Prudhoe Bay, Barrow, Wainwright, Point Hope, Kotzebue, and Nome.

That’s why Martinson made it a point to meet with Quintillion representatives during their visit to Unalaska.

“This was another opportunity to put our plight in front of them — our need for high-speed internet,” he said. “I think that ultimately, it’ll take us a while, but our odds are pretty good.”

Elizabeth Pierce is CEO of Quintillion. She said the company is already thinking about expansion, but she can’t make any promises yet.

“We are working very aggressively to determine what landings we’ll cover in phase two,” said Pierce. “It is our objective to add more Alaska landings, but it’s a little early to make any announcements.”

For now, the Ile de Brehat will start laying cable in Nome and move north. Its sister ship — the Ile de Sein — will begin in Prudhoe Bay and work south until they meet in the middle. The project is on schedule to deliver high-speed internet to western Alaska by early 2017.

 

Bristol Bay is home to the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. Over 132 years of commercial effort, now more than 2 billion salmon have been harvested from the Bay’s waters. In fact, the 2 billionth salmon was landed sometime, by someone, on July 6, 2016.

It fell to Bob King, the longtime news director at KDLG and now avid fish historian, to announce this milestone in an essay he penned last fall.

“Since the canned salmon industry came to to Bristol bay in 1884, fishermen have landed 1.99 billion salmon, 93 percent of which were sockeye.” King wrote. “It took 95 years for Bristol Bay to produce its first billion salmon, the two billionth fish will come just 38 years after that.”

King had been quietly watching the numbers for years. After the Deptartment of Fish and Game issued the forecast for the 2016 salmon run to Bristol Bay, he knew this would be the year. Fish and Game confirmed King’s tally, and decided that the 10,033,455th salmon harvested this season would mark two billion. As the run took shape, it was clear that salmon would be landed on Wednesday, July 6, an appropriately cool and rainy day in Bristol Bay.

At Dillingham’s Kanakanak Beach, set netters were headed out for an opener.

“We caught it this morning, about two o’clock!” said Coffee Point set netter Corey Evans, with a common response. Evans also offered reflections on the fishery and the milestone shared by many too.

“It’s impressive it’s gone on for this long and I think it says something about the management, that we can keep it going like this,” Evans said. “You see a lot of fisheries that have trouble through the years and this one seems to be going pretty strong. That’s pretty nice to see.”

I let Steve Becker, another Coffee Point set netter, know about the famous fish soon to be harvested.

“Really? I’m going to catch it,” he said, not missing a beat.

“How do you know it’ll be you?” I asked.

“How does anybody know who it’s gonna be?” Becker said. “It’s gonna be me.”

That’s exactly the point King reinforced in his essay.

“Whoever catches the 2 billionth salmon will never be known. Fishing will probably be fast and furious when next year’s catch tops 9 and a half million,” King wrote. “Anyone can claim credit for catching the 2 billionth salmon. And everyone should.”

“Yeah we’re going to catch that, then we’re going to mount it, frame it, sell it on eBay,” Kyle Belleque said. Belleque fishes with his family at Coffee Point. What does the milestone say about the Bay?

“It’s an ecological wonder, I mean, it’s a magnificent display of raw nature,” Belleque said.

On Wednesday afternoon, salmon were picked from gill nets in Ugashik, Egegik, Naknek-Kvichak, Togiak, Igushik, and Nushagak. The milestone fish came from somewhere, anywhere in Bay.

Matt Shawcroft and his four kids put their net in the water just after two o’clock. Maybe they caught it.

“We are picking the 2 billionth fish in Bristol Bay today!” Shawcroft said, rallying his troops to the cause. “Any one of these fish we pick could possibly be fish number two billion. So this is a special day in Bristol Bay.”

As they stretched their net from shore, a hundred pounds of sockeye filled the meshes, and generations two and three of Shawcroft set netters began picking them out, laying them in the brailer bag’s icy brine.

“Ok it looks like Emma got fish 2 billion. James you might have to be fish two billion and one,” Matt said.

“How do you know that was 2 billion?” James asked his dad. “Maybe it was fish … nine million … nine hundred … and ninety nine ….”

The rain turned from a drizzle to a downpour. Perfectly typical summer weather in Bristol Bay.

“Alright James, so we hit 2 billion today. You picked out one of those. What are the odds you’ll be here to pick the 3 billionth?” I asked.

“576 to 1,” he quipped, eliciting a few chuckles.

“Do you want to stick with this business long enough to pick the 3 billionth in another 30 years?”

“I don’t know.”

“But I bet you’ll be glad to know that it will be there, right?”

“Yeah I know it’ll be there, but I don’t know if I’ll be the one to pick it,” he told me. His older sister said she’d be the one to pick that next milestone, too.

The 3 billionth may be aways off, but not an unreachable goal for these young fishermen.

Skipper Howard Knutsen has been picking salmon from the Bay’s waters for the last billion plus. He also landed the milestone fish, pulled from near the mouth of the Ugashik River. According to CFEC records, at 86, Knutsen is the oldest actively fishing drift permit holder in Bristol Bay.

“It’s a great honor, it’s a big surprise,” said Knutsen, standing aboard the F/V Lady Helen, looking surprisingly serene, clean, and refreshed mid-season. 2016 is his forty-fifth year fishing these waters commercially.

One of Knutsen’s salmon got the VIP treatment, delivered straight to Governor Bill Walker’s doorstep in Juneau a day later. BBEDC’s Norm Van Vactor thought that’d be a nice gesture.

“One of the issues I’m sure that the governor’s dealing with is a lot of pros and cons and comments about the PFD,” Van Vactor said. “Well we can speak to Alaska’s other PFD, which is our Bristol bay salmon resource. Just like the financial PFD this is a resource that needs to be protected for generations and generations.”

The milestone salmon could’ve been a pink, a coho, a chum or a king, but in Bristol Bay, the overwhelming odds are that it was a sockeye. From the drift boat or set net skiff, it was sold to a tender or driven up a beach and ended up at a processor. Then it was canned, cut, frozen, or flown out fresh.

Icicle Seafoods’ Samantha Russell showed off the milestone fish after it had made its way into her plant late Wednesday evening.

“I’m pleased to announce that I’m holding the 2 billionth sockeye salmon to be harvested out of Bristol Bay,” Russell said, standing at the sorting line in Icicle Seafoods’ Wood River plant.

“That’s a good looking fish,” I asked.

“It sure is,” she said. “That’s about a ten pound round fish, a hundred percent scales, firm, number one quality.”

“Where will this end up?”

“We’re gonna pack this fresh and fly it out on Alaska airlines tomorrow, and this fish will wind up somewhere on the East Coast,” said Russell.

“So the 2 billionth Bristol Bay salmon is going to be on somebody’s dinner table this week?”

“It should be on someone’s dinner table by tomorrow evening,” Russell added.

When will Bristol Bay celebrate the next billion?

“With continued scientific management of the salmon resource, maintaining the fish’s natural habitat and a little good luck, Bristol Bay fishermen might look forward to catching its 3 billionth salmon in 2054,” Bob King posted in his essay.

By the time the 2016 season wraps up, this fishery will be another 25 or 30 million salmon closer to that next milestone.

The first commercial fishing opening for fall chum started Wednesday for Marshall and Russian Mission, but still no solution has been found for the villages’ broken ice machine, forcing fishermen to either stop fishing or travel 60 miles and back to the village of St. Mary’s to get ice.

Marshall’s Maserculiq Native Corp. owns the machine but has made no effort to fix it since the compressor quit working two weeks ago. Replacing the part would cost $15,000.

Ten fishermen testified at the Maserculiq monthly board meeting Tuesday, asking the corporation to replace or repair the ice maker’s compressor. One of the fishermen was Nick P. Andrew Jr.

“Majority of the fishermen stated lost fishing time, used the words ‘affecting the economy,’ and basically stating that for a lot of fishermen this is their only income opportunity,” Andrew said.

Andrew is also the Marshall tribal administrator and said he’s applying for a grant to buy a new machine that would be owned and operated by the tribe. If awarded, the grant he’s considering would deliver in fiscal year 2018.

Maserculiq board member Lena Sergie said the corporation is trying to find ways to purchase a new ice machine but haven’t solidified anything so far.

St. Mary’s-based Boreal Fisheries can buy the chum, but only with the right ice.  Owners Randy and Edna Crawford won’t send a boat to pick up the fish unless it’s in flake ice, which fishermen can’t make at home and which Edna calls a necessary industry standard.

“It has to be flake ice,” Edna Crawford said, “because that’s the only way you’re going to keep the temperature of the fish down, especially with the weather we’ve had over here.”

Since the machine broke, Marshall commercial fisherman Leonard Fitka Sr. has missed two fishing openings. He’s been boating the four and a half hours to fetch ice and fears the trips are unsustainable.

“Fishermen are working harder, staying up longer, (spending) more time away from family. It’s hurting the economy,” Fitka said.

Fishermen in Russian Mission travel even further for ice. Myron Edwards, a commercial fisherman there, said with gas over $4 a gallon he won’t make a profit, and he doesn’t know when he’s going to fish next.

“We’re not too sure how we’re going to do this,” Edwards said. “Some of us don’t have enough money to pay for gas to pitch in for one boat to go all the way up to Boreal to pick up ice.”

The Crawfords, who own Boreal, have known the commercial fishermen in Marshall and Russian Mission for decades and have built a close relationship with them. Boreal has provided free labor multiple times to fix their ice machine, and last year the Crawfords donated a generator. They run a small operation and Randy Crawford said they’ve done all they can.

“Edna and I are really frustrated because we’ve put so much effort into it, and we can give no more,” he said.

Boreal pays an average of $400,000 a year to Marshall fishermen. Randy said it’s an important part of the Marshall economy and he wants Maserculiq to invest in its community.

Marshall commercial fisherman Nick Andrew Jr. had sent letters to shareholders and fishermen in Marshall and Russian Mission asking them to attend Tuesday’s meeting.

“We are imploring the village corporation for them to take ownership and invest in the ice machine,” Andrew said.

The Maserculiq CEO and board members did not respond to KYUK’s emails asking about the machine.

The U.S. Coast Guard is setting up for activities in Kotzebue this summer and summers to come. The Coast Guard signed a five-year lease with the Alaska Army National Guard facility in Kotzebue. It’s the first long-term lease for the Coast Guard above the Arctic Circle and will serve as a station for Arctic operations.

U.S. Coast Guard Tribal Liaison Sudie Hargis is based in Juneau. She was part of a team that visited Nome last week for an oil spill response drill. Hargis says having the Coast Guard stationed in Kotzebue offers an opportunity for more local search and rescue and disaster response support. An Arctic liaison officer will also connect with community members in Nome, Kotzebue and Barrow.

Hargis says the Coast Guard is still deciding where to establish a “hard infrastructure” for Arctic operations, but this five-year lease does “provide a lot of capability to come up to the region and operate for the people of Alaska.”

The State of Alaska turns over the Kotzebue Army National Guard hangar Friday. It will be marked by a Coast Guard MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter rolling into the facility followed by a community barbecue. In addition, both the State and NANA Corporation will honor former National Guard adjutant general John Schaeffer.

The Coast Guard will be in operation in Kotzebue from July through October.

For the first time ever, hunters who live outside the Northwest Arctic will not be allowed to hunt caribou on federal lands. The Federal Subsistence Board has closed Game Management Unit 23 starting July 1 in an effort to conserve Alaska’s largest herd and protect subsistence.

But the yearlong ban has created some controversy and confusion surrounding the hunt. Just last week, the State of Alaska petitioned U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to intervene in the decision.

It’s breakfast, and Victor Karmun is having biscuits and gravy at one of his favorite spots in Kotzebue. With fall fast approaching, though, he said he has been thinking a lot lately about another favorite food.

“Caribou: One of the most used animals in the region,” he said. “Been controversial ever since I got back.”

Karmun’s originally from the village of Deering, but he has lived in Kotzebue since 1979. That’s when he returned to Alaska after serving in the military. That’s also when he started noticing the region was a little busier when he boated up the Noatak River each season to hunt caribou.

“All of a sudden, the transporters and outfitters found out about this region,” he said. “We’ve been really locking horns with them for about 20 years or better.”

Some locals say outside hunters are disrespectful, wasting meat or leaving trash at their camps. Others claim that outsiders have an unfair advantage because they can afford to fly and land near the herd, while local families pool their money for boat fuel and wait for caribou to cross the rivers.

No matter whom you talk to, though, Karmun said one thing is clear: It has gotten harder for people to fill their freezers each fall. The Northwest Arctic Caribou Herd has shrunk by half in the last 10 or 15 years, and the animals have stopped following many of their traditional migratory routes.

Outside hunters may not be to blame, but Karmun said taking them out of the equation for one year is certainly worth a try.

“Right now, we’ve got a little breathing room,” he said. “Maybe the village of Noatak will get a little reprieve and get some animals this fall. Who knows?”

But that attitude is frustrating for outside hunters — and the bush pilots and guides who rely on their business.

Jared Cummings owns Golden Eagle Outfitters, a transporter service that has operated out of Kotzebue for nearly 10 years. Since the closure was announced in April, he says the company has lost around $250,000, refunding money to caribou clients who had booked trips this season.

That’s a big chunk of his business, but Cummings said it’s not really about the money.

“It’s about what’s right or wrong,” he said. “These people are United States citizens. They want to come up here and shoot one caribou. They should be allowed to.”

Cummings points to population estimates from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The state hasn’t finished a full caribou survey since 2013, but a recent rough estimate puts the herd at 206,000 animals.

That number would indicate the herd is stabilizing after years of decline. And if that’s true, Cummings said “conservation” may be masking the real motive behind the closure.

“It’s not biological at all, and I think everybody knows what that means,” he said.

Namely, prejudice against outside hunters — which some say is unfounded. According to guides and transporters, outside hunters don’t waste meat or mess up migration routes by flying in. Instead, they argue that outsiders donate extra meat to elders and that caribou are changing their own patterns in response to a changing climate.

So for many of those who work with outsiders, it really boils down to one thing.

“They resent people coming in with new Cabelas camo on,” said Jake Jacobson. He has been a hunting guide since the 1970s, and now he splits his time between Kodiak and a camp north of Kotzebue.

“They just resent outsiders coming in that way, and I can understand that,” he said. “That’s territorialism, and I think that’s part of human nature. But that’s just something that if we live in a civil society, we have to accept.”

Jacobson said his business will take a big financial hit this season. He has lost six clients, who won’t make the trip if they can’t hunt caribou. But he said his main concern is that the closure will set a dangerous precedent for future restrictions.

“This is an unnecessary infringement of public access to a public resource on public lands,” he said.

The problem with that thinking is that the resource has a very different significance for local hunters than it does for outsiders. At least, that’s how Pete Schaeffer sees it.

“Caribou is still the mainstay of our diet, so it’s pretty much a no-brainer,” he said. “We have to be able to gather the animal and use it.”

Schaeffer is from Kotzebue, and he has hunted caribou since he was a teenager, primarily on the Kobuk and Selawik Rivers. Unlike outside hunters, he said most local families don’t have an easy grocery alternative if their hunts don’t pan out.

“When you go to a village where a bag of precooked chicken is upward of $20 and then you go to Anchorage where it’s $4.99, you can better understand what I’m talking about,” he said.

So as caribou have gotten harder to hunt, regardless of the reason and how the herd may rebound, Schaeffer said the closure makes sense right now. He says hopefully, it’ll take some pressure off local hunters and give them a better chance at gathering a major diet staple.

“To [outside hunters], it’s a recreational need,” he said. “In some cases, they use the meat. But it inadvertently raises the question as to whether people who hunt for sport have just as much right as people who have a critical need for the meat.”

Back at breakfast, Victor Karmun said someday, he thinks locals and outsiders could coexist.

“If it was managed correctly, there are enough animals to go around,” he said. “I don’t know if that will ever happen.”

And until Fish and Game surveys the whole herd again, no one’s really sure that there are enough caribou. If the survey attempt this fall is successful, there’ll be a brand-new population estimate by December — something that could reinforce the need for closures and conservation or bring the complicated conversation right back to where it started.