Amid proposed budget cuts, mass firings and incentives to resign, signals are mixed from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, about its plans to complete its usual fisheries surveys and research in the Gulf of Alaska this summer.
The data collected during these surveys inform fisheries management decisions, and ultimately, how much commercial fishermen are allowed to catch.
“So what are we doing this year? Prioritizing our data collection," Bob Foy, the director of NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, said. "There’s likely to be some changes and throughout all of that, we will focus on our core data collection.”
Foy spoke during this week’s ComFish Alaska trade show in Kodiak. He said NOAA's data collection this year includes things like the biennial Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl survey, the annual Eastern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey and various groundfish surveys.
Foy did not explicitly confirm that these surveys will happen this year. The NOAA Fisheries website, last updated on March 19, lists scheduled dates and plans to conduct each of them this summer.
Mike Litzow, another NOAA employee with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Kodiak, confirmed with KMXT that the Eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl surveys are priorities for this year and he is confident they will happen this summer.
More than 1,000 NOAA employees have been fired or quit in the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second term. There remains a swirl of uncertainty around staffing, funding and logistics that factor into NOAA Fisheries’ summer research in Alaska.
Alaska Republican Congressman Nick Begich III was also in Kodiak this week for ComFish. He said data collection for commercial fisheries and NOAA Fisheries are vitally important, but thinks they could be more cost-effective.
“I think we need to make sure that NOAA is utilizing private, privately available data sets to augment their existing data sets, and find ways to be more efficient with the spending that’s being rolled out. And that’s not just true of NOAA but throughout the government," Begich said. "But what I think we need to be asking government to do for us is to spend less and give us more.”
The Project 2025 document, which has been cited as a blueprint for President Donald Trump's agenda, has hinted at similar approaches to privatize other government services, too, such as the Post Office or the National Weather Service.
Some important fisheries’ data have already been collected this season, specifically around Kodiak Island. The NOAA ship Oscar Dyson spent days in the Shelikof Strait, around the Chirikof shelf break and Marmot Bay, earlier this month completing surveys for the pollock stock assessments.
“I’m not going to share details of that survey right now, but suffice it to say it was a priority for us and I’m very, very happy that this year we were able to get that done," Foy said. "And we continue to plan for our other surveys but it’s not clear what we will be able to execute for the rest of the year.”
Foy added that unexpected ship repairs almost canceled the Shelikof Strait survey this month.
According to an email from Keeley Belva, NOAA’s public affairs lead for the Oscar Dyson, the research vessel will begin its studies on ocean conditions in the Gulf of Alaska next week.
Despite Senator Lisa Murkowski voicing concerns last month about staffing onboard the NOAA ship, Belva said, “NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations makes every effort to maintain the sailing schedules for all vessels and support NOAA missions, as well as mission partners. In order to do that, vessels need to be in working order and fully staffed – at no point will the ship compromise the safety of the vessel or personnel onboard.”
NOAA’s Gulf of Alaska bottom trawl survey is slated to begin next month on May 18 and last into August.
