Unalaska, AK – Scientists, industry players, federal agencies, and communities are working together to map the productive Pribilof Canyon Ecosystem. The cooperative research allows all of the different stakeholders to access and use important new information about the ecologically significant area. This is the first time the area has been mapped in its entirety. Earl Krygier is the cooperative research coordinator for the Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation, an organization representing fishing vessel owners, processors, and fishing communities. He says that understanding the canyon is important for environmental conservation and for sustainable fishing.

"We want to make sure that in the long term, if there are areas that are sensitive, that we know about those and we can take management measures that will protect those long-term and yet provide sustainable fishing in those areas so the communities and industries are sustainable in the long term."

The Pribilof Canyon is one of the deepest in the Bering Sea and its effects on nutrient flow contribute to the ecological diversity of the region.

"Canyons we know are very important biologically and they're basically a conduit for moving nutrients and currents between the upper slope and the deep ocean," he said. "They're also areas that we know very little about."

TerraSound, a seafloor mapping firm, was contracted by MCAF, NOAA's National Ocean Service, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and University of Alaska Fairbanks to use sonar technology to create a detailed map of the canyon floor.

"This is a baseline survey that's going to upgrade the NOAA nautical charts and provide very clear, systematic information about what the bottom contours look like," Krygier said. "This is very important for the fishermen because they don't want to hang up their gear and lose it on the bottom because it causes marine debris and it causes them a very large expense. It's not good for the fishery and it's not good for the fishermen."

The backscatter data from the mapping also helps identify what types of habitat are on the canyon floor. The sound bounces back differently depending on the density and type of material it hits, so it can show if the area is rocky or muddy. Krygier said all of this baseline information can be used to do further studies of the ecosystems in the canyon and how they are changing. Knowing the depths and contours of the region is necessary for sending down any submersibles or remote operated vehicles to explore the area.

"You put a sub or an underwater vehicle down and you want to get it back. So you don't want it to run into structures or things that could cause you to lose people or to lose equipment. So the baseline survey is critcal for that," he said.

Krygier said that having multiple and diverse funding sources for the research project helped get the project off the ground sooner and improved the collection of data through increased access to different resources.

By having "access to vessels and having access to the institutional knowledge that the fishermen and the community members have about the areas the science is going on" improves the overall quality of the work, he said. "And you can really facilitate science in ways that you can't do if you just come in as a researcher to an area where you don't have as much background."

Krygier said that once the data is compiled, verified, and analyzed the data sets will be available to other scientists and to the public either through the North Pacific Research Board or through the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. It will also be used to update NOAA nautical charts.