{"id":63296,"date":"2020-09-08T06:14:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/study-pink-salmon-could-prosper-in-warmer-arctic-waters\/"},"modified":"2020-09-08T06:14:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T14:14:00","slug":"study-pink-salmon-could-prosper-in-warmer-arctic-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/study-pink-salmon-could-prosper-in-warmer-arctic-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Pink salmon could prosper in warmer Arctic waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Associated Press<\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\n

ANCHORAGE — A new study has found that global warming could produce higher numbers of pink salmon in the Arctic by making rivers and streams more hospitable for spawning.<\/p>\n

The analysis was published by U.S. and Canadian scientists in the journal Deep Sea Research Part II, Alaska’s Energy Desk reported Monday.<\/p>\n

The findings bolster reports by Alaska subsistence fishermen that pink salmon numbers have increased as the Arctic warms at more than double the rate of the rest of the globe.<\/p>\n

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“Maybe in the past, they’d see a few adult pink salmon here and there every few years. Now they’re seeing them every year,” said Ed Farley, a federal fisheries scientist at the Auke Bay Laboratories in Juneau.<\/p>\n

The scientists found that young pink salmon do better in warmer temperatures, which in turn increases the likelihood of larger numbers of adult fish spawning the following summer.<\/p>\n

“It’s likely in the future we could see successful spawning,” Farley said. “When that happens, you’re going to see more pink salmon in the High Arctic.”<\/p>\n

In the Gulf of Alaska, salmon and cod stocks were harmed by a massive marine heat wave across the Pacific, commonly known as “the blob,” between 2014 and 2016. Surface ocean temperatures rose 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n

Farley thinks there is more room for ocean temperatures to warm further north before fish are harmed.<\/p>\n

“The Bering Sea was a little cooler than the Gulf of Alaska, and with this warming, we seem to be moving into a sweet spot for salmon,” he said. “Whereas when we got really warm in the Gulf, we exceeded that sweet spot.”<\/p>\n

Some Arctic residents are already changing fishing techniques to target increasing numbers of pink salmon.<\/p>\n

Sheldon Brower, who lives in the village of Kaktovik on Alaska’s North Slope, said next year he plans to use a net with a larger mesh in the hopes of snagging more pink salmon.<\/p>\n

“I’ve had some salmon strips and smoked salmon,” Brower said. “I want to try to catch as much as I can.”<\/p>\n

• This is an Associated Press report. <\/em><\/ins><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The findings bolster reports from Alaska subsistence fishermen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":63297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[40,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-63296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-salmon","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63296"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=63296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}