Radio Script
1998

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Undersea Fish Homes
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INTRO: Around the world, commercial quantities of fish are getting harder to find. According to the United Nations, most fish stocks are either fished out or on the verge of being overharvested. As Doug Schneider reports in this week's Arctic Science Journeys, some scientists are trying to help stocks recover by protecting the unique undersea places where they feed and raise their young.

STORY: As the small skiff passes beyond the maze of islands densely carpeted with old-growth spruce trees, the feeling of being in a great open space overtakes you. Ahead, the North Pacific Ocean stretches—unbroken—to the horizon. Yet beneath the surface lies a rugged landscape, dominated by two undersea volcanoes. The volcanoes—called the Cape Edgecumbe Pinnacles—stand like sentinels at the entrance to Sitka Sound, in Southeast Alaska. Tory O'Connell is a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

O'CONNELL: One of the volcanoes comes up from 70 fathoms up to 34 fathoms. And then the other one comes from 70 fathoms up to 19 fathoms. The 19-fathom pinnacle is fairly abrupt on one side. It's got a small top to it, so it's mostly just vertical relief. It has a large apron of giant boulders on one side, which is excellent fish habitat. And then because it's volcanic, it is comprised of columnar basalt, so there's lots of almost stair-like steps and platforms for fish to sit on."

The tallest of the two volcanoes rises just over 300 feet above the sea floor. The other juts up a respectable 200 feet. Together, the volcanoes occupy only a few acres. Yet within this small space is an amazing abundance of sea life.

O'CONNELL: "Well it's colorful at the top. And if you were to go down all the way to the base, when you first get to the bottom you'd see cobbles and then boulders. Once you got into the large boulders, you would see some bright orange primnoa coral. You'd also see bright orange yelloweye rockfish and lingcod and prow fish—and tiger rockfish, which are red and white striped fish. But mostly you'd see large adult fish at the base as well as some juveniles of the deep-water rockfish groups. As you work your way up the side, you'd see more orange coral. And often fish are residing in the coral. As you work your way to the top you get into larger numbers of fish. Large two-feet-high mertridium cover the top of the pinnacle, bright pink and purple bryozoans. Lots of crabs and large schools of juvenile rockfish. Adult lingcod in the summer lay on top of each other like cordwood. It's kind of an unbelievable aggregation."

O'Connell says lingcod, a fish that usually lay its eggs in shallow water, instead spawns in the very deep water at the base of the pinnacles. There, the male lingcod sits on the eggs for 11 weeks until they hatch. Other fish hang out at the pinnacles too. So many halibut, crab and salmon can be found here that local commercial fishermen say it's a sure-fire fishing hole. And that worries Tory O'Connell.

O'CONNELL: "In the summer it's used as a feeding platform by lingcod and other fish that sit up at the top and just chow down on feed. The catchability there if you drag your gear over it is very, very high. We don't have biomass estimates or harvest objectives for the lingcod fishery yet. We don't know what the population is. So it just made me nervous that these fish were congregating seasonally. It would be like targeting a spawning aggregation to let fishermen take a large percentage of the quota of a small area like this."

Protecting the pinnacle's fish populations has long been one of Tory O'Connell's goals. Although the site has been closed to lingcod fishing under state law, she recently led an effort to have the pinnacles protected under federal law. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the federal group charged with regulating lingcod, halibut and other bottomfish, sided with O'Connell and many of the residents of the nearby fishing town of Sitka.

Dave Witherell is fisheries biologist with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

WITHERELL: "The pinnacles were adopted as a marine sanctuary, meaning that no commercial or sport fishing for groundfish, scallops, or anything else can go on in there. However they will allow commercial and sport fishing for salmon in that area."

Witherell says the pinnacles join a growing list of specific, yet narrowly defined habitats that qualify as Marine Protected Areas.

WITHERELL: "The council has a long history of creating these marine protected areas. In other words, prohibiting certain kinds of fishing in an area to protect habitat. Most of the time it's been done to protect fragile crab habitat. In this case it was a unique habitat that certainly could be damaged by fishing gear."

Witherell says the council is moving toward providing even more protections to fish habitat. Under the new Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act passed by Congress last year, the council is required to identify and protect fish habitats considered to be essential to feeding and reproduction.

OUTRO: For Arctic Science Journeys, this is Doug Schneider, reporting from Fairbanks, Alaska.