A rat trap outside the Trident Seafoods plant on St. Paul Island. KUCB/John Ryan photo.
Biologists and tribal officials in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska are working to protect one of the world's greatest gatherings of seabirds. With a little unwilling help from wharf rats in Alaska's Dutch Harbor, the nation's busiest fishing port, they aim to keep rats as far away as Seattle from devouring the birds of the rat-free Pribilof Islands.
The Pribilofs -- a handful of treeless islands in the Bering Sea 300 miles from the Alaskan mainland -- are famous for their millions of seabirds. They turn the islands' sea cliffs into noisy multi-species cities each summer, as heard in this recording from St. Paul in 1968.
The sun sets on the Polar Pioneer in Unalaska's Broad Bay on Monday. KUCB/John Ryan photo.
Shell Oil's Polar Pioneer rig left Alaska's Dutch Harbor for Port Angeles, Washington, on Wednesday.
The energy giant's other Arctic rig, the Noble Discoverer, left Dutch Harbor for Everett, Washington, on Monday.
Other ships in Shell's Arctic fleet are expected to leave Alaska over the next couple of weeks, and the company has not disclosed the fate of the 400 employees who have worked on the project in Anchorage.
Last week the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced catch limits for the state’s crab fisheries. On Monday, a Fish and Game biologist explained how the agency determined those catch limits to a group of crabbers in Seattle. Nine local crabbers gathered at Unalaska’s City Hall to tune into the conference call and ask questions.
The biggest drop in total allowable catch – or the TAC – is for Bering Sea snow crab, also known as opilio. The total allowable catch this season for snow crab is just over 40 million pounds. That’s a forty percent drop from last season.
St. Paul elder Gregory Fratis, Sr. KUCB/John Ryan photo.
Hundreds of Alaska Natives will meet over the next three days at the 32nd annual Elders and Youth conference in Anchorage. This year’s theme is “Not in our smokehouse!”
On the conference's first morning, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and Alaska Gov. Bill Walker declared the day Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day.
The conference’s elder keynote speaker is Aleut (Unangan) elder Gregory Fratis, Sr., of St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs.
Shell's two Arctic oil rigs pulled into Unalaska's Dutch Harbor on Sunday, some 1,100 miles south of the company's drilling site in the Chukchi Sea.
The Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer headed south from the Chukchi shortly after Shell abandoned its quest for Arctic Ocean oil after drilling one well this summer.
Shell spokeswoman Megan Baldino said the rigs are refueling and making crew changes during their brief stops in Dutch Harbor.
This week the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced catch limit numbers for the upcoming red king crab and tanner crab seasons.
The 2015/2016 Bristol Bay red king crab total allowable catch is 9.974 million pounds.
Of that total, 8.976 million pounds are allowed under the individual fishing quota. Just under a million are allowed under the community development quota.
Mussels collected from Little Priest Rock in Unalaska this summer tested positive for high levels of toxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP. That’s according to Melissa Good of the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program.
Good said that throughout the summer, she’s been collecting blue mussels from Unalaska for analysis by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The last of the collection ended on September 30. Once the data is in and analyzed, Good promised to present a community lecture on her findings.
Polling booths in Council Chambers. Photo by Greta Mart.
According to the preliminary count listed on the ballot box ticker tape Tuesday night just after 8 p.m., Frank Kelty is in the lead for City Council Seat G with 158 votes. His opponent John Waldron received 112 votes. There were four votes for write-in candidates.
City Clerk Cat Hazen says are still 28 absentee ballots left to be counted. Hazen said she plans to open and count those absentee ballots on Friday at ten a.m.
The Alaska Department of Transportation is proposing changes in ferry service to Unalaska/Dutch Harbor for the 2016 sailing season.
On Tuesday the state agency released its draft Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) sailing schedule for next year. If approved as is, the ferry Tustumena will sail to Unalaska once in June and once in September. In May, July and August, the ferry will make the run from Kodiak to Unalaska twice a month.
