The commercial Silver harvest in the Norton Sound yielded the lowest numbers since 2002.This trend follows suit from last year as well, which yielded far less than projected. The run was “very poor,” Menard said. The preliminary catch was 7,100 Silvers. That’s less than half caught in the commercial fishery last year.
St. Lawrence Island, home to two native villages in the region, is also the summer home of several migratory seabird species, including kittiwakes, auklets, murre and shearwaters. Over the last several years, though, the bird colonies on the island have been shrinking, and no one has been able to determine why.
Starting last week, regional residents reported numerous dead seabirds washing up on regional beaches. Alaska Sea Grant Agent Gay Sheffield said there were carcasses of murres, puffins, shearwaters and a kittiwake starting on July 28; in Golovin, Solomon, Nome and a dead Little Diomede.
The prospects are dim for this summer’s Norton Sound commercial fishing and crabbing seasons.
The last few weeks have seen another alarming uptick in the number of dead, emaciated seabirds found washed up on the shores in the Bering Sea.
Every year since 2015, the Bering Sea has melted out earlier than in every year before 2015. If heat is killing animals, scientists have yet to pin down exactly how it is doing so.
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