Fishery managers overseeing Alaska’s faltering salmon runs should be able to rely on a more comprehensive and holistic approach to science that considers all habitat, from the middle of the ocean to freshwater spawning streams far inland, according to a task force report on salmon research needs.
The report was issued last week by the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, a group established through a 2022 act of Congress to identify knowledge gaps and research needs. The task force comprises close to 20 members and includes scientists, fishers, Indigenous community representatives and agency managers. In addition to those members, the effort included a special 42-member working group focused on salmon problems in the Yukon and Kuskokwim river drainages.
The report follows a year’s worth of meetings and consultations.
To better understand Alaska’s salmon runs and how to address the problems besetting them, research should be along the lines of the Department of the Interior’s Gravel to Gravel Keystone Initiative, the report said. That gravel-to-gravel approach, which includes habitat restoration projects, was adopted by federal agencies specifically to address the salmon crisis in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region, which includes the portion of the Arctic that drains into the Yukon.
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“Prior salmon research efforts have undoubtedly enabled important advancements in our knowledge and understanding of salmon abundance patterns across Alaska. However, when each research project is advanced and understood in isolation, which is the norm, we often fail to develop a synthesized and holistic perspective across the entire salmon life cycle,” the report said.
The report breaks down numerous issues of concern and has recommendations to address them.
Among the issues of concern are the state of food availability for salmon in the marine environment, which is affected by factors like competition from masses of hatchery fish and conditions like algal blooms; warming temperatures and extreme events, which stem from climate change and can create conditions that are fatal to salmon; can create fish-killing or damaging heat, along with other shocks; and interception of river-bound salmon by commercial fishing vessels targeting other species, an unintended practice known as bycatch.
Research should not be limited to fish and the waters where they swim, the report said. There should be more information about the people who depend on salmon, it said.
Some recommended changes are already underway.
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The report calls for better technology to be employed, for example, an effort already underway at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries service.
The center is updating its fisheries survey program, making modifications in response to climate change and incorporating more modern technology that was not available in the past. Some of the new technology that is planned in the future will use sophisticated imaging to track phytoplankton and zooplankton, said Maggie Mooney-Seus, a communications manager with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. Phytoplankton and zooplankton are the tiny marine plants and animals that make up the bottom of the food web.
Imaging technology can identify species much faster than the sampling process used up to now, and identifying and tracking that plankton is important because fish prey is shifting as water warms, ice retreats and the potential for harmful algal blooms increases, Mooney-Seus said.
The report also recommends more use of Indigenous knowledge and cites the value of cooperation with communities, tribes, multiple government agencies and international organizations like the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission. Anadromous fish are those like salmon that swim up rivers to spawn.
A key international player in Alaska’s salmon fortunes is Russia. The report includes salmon data from Russia, and it notes that large amounts of hatchery fish are released into the Bering Sea from Russia. Despite the breakdown in U.S.-Russia relations that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is still some cooperation with Russia through the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission, said Ed Farley, task force’s chair and the ecosystem monitoring and assessment program manager at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
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“This collaboration is ongoing and is why we are able to provide hatchery release and salmon catch data from Russia,” Farley said by email.
Russian colleagues participated virtually and made presentations at a workshop last month in British Columbia on climate warming and its impact on salmon, he said.
The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, walks toward the altar at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
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A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
The Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
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Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
Fr. Sean Carroll, provincial of the Jesuits West Province, speaks at an event recognizing nearly 140 years of Jesuit service in Alaska.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
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Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner, one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska, attends a ceremony in Bethel.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
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“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Jesuit priests form a row along the altar of Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church as members of the congregation lift their arms and pray.
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
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“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, stands in the middle of a crowd waiting to take a photo at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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