Kodiak’s biologists are hard at work in the field this summer. But funding cuts and high fuel costs are making it harder for them to get the data they need to manage the species they study.
Gray whales are returning to Pasagshak Bay for the summer, and Aleutian terns are nesting in the area’s pastures. Both populations are struggling across the West Coast.
Biologists with the Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak are monitoring the Pasagshak gray whales and collaborating with Oregon State University to study their health. A big part of that is going out in a boat to look for dead gray whales and counting how many have arrived.
But boats use diesel, and as of June 16, diesel in Kodiak was around $6.30 a gallon with tax, a nearly 70 percent increase from last year.
“The whale surveys, we’ve had to definitely switch to a more shore-based approach than using watercraft for that," said Matt Van Daele, the Tribe’s natural resources director.
Surveying from the shore means the team can only monitor areas that are visible from the road system. West Coast gray whale population estimates have declined by more than 50 percent over the past decade, and this year has been particularly bad in the lower 48. Scientists are worried it may become the worst year for whale deaths on record. Van Daele said this makes collecting accurate body condition and mortality data all the more important.
“With what has happened during the northbound gray whale migration and the increased mortalities that have happened farther south, [collecting gray whale data] is one of our highest priorities for this season," Van Daele said.
He added that because of the high cost of fuel, they're relying more on reports from community members.
“How fortunate we are in Kodiak to have a very passionate outdoorsy community," he said. "[We are] figuring out ways to have this outdoor community be our eyes and ears, because we can’t be everywhere at once.”
Van Daele said people should report anything unusual, like dead or distressed marine mammals, to the Sun’aq Tribe or other appropriate authority.
They’re not the only biologists facing cost difficulties this summer. All over Kodiak, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has been setting up weirs to count salmon, including sockeye on the Buskin River. The Buskin sockeye weir had been funded by the US Department of the Interior Office of Subsistence Management’s Fisheries Resource Monitoring Program up until 2025.
But Tyler Polum, the sportfish biologist for Fish and Game’s Kodiak office, said they weren't able to get the funding for this year. In a normal summer, he said they would have three technicians and two high school interns working on the weir. But this year, the funding gap forced them to cut back to just two technicians.
Partially because of the short staff, Polum said they put the weir on June 5, around three weeks late, and will be closing it down early at the end of June instead of at the end of July. For the first time since at least 2000, their data set won’t cover the entire sockeye run.
“Our hope is to be able to get some sort of index to get an idea of the abundance at least, and then use that to keep informing management," he said.
As it stands, sport fishermen can take two sockeye per day from the Kodiak road zone, which includes the Buskin River.
Polum said they don’t have enough data yet to make any in-season changes to regulations for the Buskin sockeye. But through June 16, 476 sockeye had passed through the weir – about an eighth of what came through by that same date last year. Polum said it’s below average but not unexpected.
He said if the run doesn’t pick up soon, fishermen should expect restrictions.
