The Fathomless Frustrations of Finding Forage Fishes: Difficulties in the Assessment of Alaskan Stocks

Forage fishes are a key element of Alaska's marine ecosystems. In the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea the forage base consists partly of small schooling pelagics like capelin and herring, but also of juvenile groundfishes (e.g. walleye pollock), squids, euphausiids, and other species. The assessment of forage fish populations is plagued by a lack of information, particularly for species that are not targeted by commercial fisheries. In state and federal waters of Alaska, herring are the only forage species with directed fisheries (although the abundance of juvenile groundfishes and salmon is affected by large-scale fisheries for the adults). Fishing for other species is limited either by regulatory bans on directed fishing (e.g. for capelin, eulachon, and euphausiids) or through a lack of market interest (e.g. squid). Although this makes conservation easier it also results in a lack of dedicated research effort, particularly surveys, regarding these species. Assessments rely instead on information gleaned from survey efforts directed towards other species, including bottom trawl surveys (groundfish) and hydroacoustic surveys (pollock). In this talk I will demonstrate that we have made some progress with the assessment of capelin, but that reliable abundance data for other species remain elusive.