Fisheries

Gov. Bill Walker proposed cutting about 45 positions and $3.5 million from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s 2018 budget last week, significantly smaller than the $11.5 million in cuts over the last two years.

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.

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 bill on its way to the president’s desk authorizes most of the money needed to build a new boat harbor in Craig. But the funding itself will wait for future congressional action.

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.