Alaskan Cod Catch Cut By 80%; Warming Oceans Having Disastrous Impact On Reproduction, Survival

Kodiak officials already are drafting a disaster declaration due to the crash of cod stocks throughout the Gulf of Alaska. The shortage will hurt many other coastal communities as well.

Gulf cod catches for 2018 will drop by 80 percent to just under 29 million pounds in federally managed waters, compared to a harvest this year of nearly 142 million pounds. The crash is expected to continue into 2020 or 2021. Cod catches in the Bering Sea also will decline by 15 percent to 414 million pounds. In all, Alaska produces 12 percent of global cod fish.

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The cod decline is blamed on younger fish not surviving warm ocean temperatures that began in 2014. "It was different than other years in that it went really deep, and it also lasted throughout the winter. What can happen is the food source can deplete rapidly when the entire ecosystem is ramped up in those warm temperatures," said Steve Barbeaux, a scientist with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. The warm water also hurt cod egg survival and wiped out several year classes of juvenile fish.

The harvest numbers for state waters (inside 3 miles) also will plummet as they are based on the federal catches. That will really hurt small-boat fishermen. A breakdown by the Aleutians East Borough shows state water cod catches next year in the Gulf will total less than 10 million pounds compared to more than 48 million pounds in 2017.

As further examples of badly it will play out in some Gulf communities – at Cook Inlet the cod take next year will drop to under 700,000 pounds compared to more than 6.2 million pounds in 2017. At Prince William Sound, the cod catch will be less than 1 million pounds, down from 4.3 million pounds. At Kodiak, the state waters cod catch in 2018 will be 2.2 million pounds, down from more than 12 million pounds in 2017.

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https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2017/12/17/kodiak-officials-prepare-for-disaster-an-80-percent-decline-in-gulf-cod-catches-in-2018/