Gulf Life

I finished last month doing something that I love: being at sea playing with fish! I was on the Oscar Dyson for work with the Gulf of Alaska Project (my little part of that big project is looking at the bioenergetics of baby fish like walleye pollock and Pacific cod).

I love research!!!

Don't worry, while I was there I also looked for my little crustacean friends! First, along for the trip with me was a fellow crab lover:

Dr. Jodi Pirtle researched red king crab for her PhD!

Jodi was doing really awesome work with mapping the seafloor. Another researcher shared this special little find with me:

MEEEP!

I'm not sure what kind of crab it is. We were trawling off of Kodiak, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a little king crab, but I honestly don't know. Any guesses?

I didn't mind touching that little angel, but this next thing took some mental pep talks to actually handle:

yes, I touched that

(the board is in centimeters, so this gal was 43 mm long!)

(see this post for why I don't like isopods)

ugh, I hate to admit it, but she's actually kind of cute

Off the boat, I enjoyed Kodiak's crabbing culture. This was a beautiful view to start my day and a beautiful view to end this post. Enjoy!

crab pot sunrise

What's goin' on

It's almost snow, Tanner, and red king crab season! The opening is October 15th! The limit for Bristol Bay red king crab is 8.6 million pounds and the reopened Tanner crab fishery is 3.1 million pounds. The snow crab quota almost 54 million pounds (down a but from last year's 66.3 million pounds) - they're kind of a big deal!

Are you ready? More importantly, are the fishermen?

(Turn off the closed captioning by hitting the "CC" icon for easier viewing.)

Mark Begich commented on the importance of the fishing permits: “These permits take hours to process. The paperwork trail is important so we know it’s not illegal crab caught by fish pirates on the other side of the Bering Sea. The paperwork trail helps Americans know the crab we’re eating is safe."

it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

Special Note: This is currently happening in Alaska. This post takes no political sides. This post is only to share information regarding the Alaskan crab fisheries. Please, no negative comments!