Alaska Fisheries Report January 27, 2022

On this week’s Alaska Fisheries Report with Terry Haines: Scientists talk about the challenges and rewards of collaborating on the Ecosystem Status Report.

Challenges and Rewards of Ecosystem Management

Alaska’s fisheries managers are transitioning to ecosystem management. Rather than manage each species in a scientific vacuum, the idea is to manage them in the context of the whole ecosystem. This is not such an easy task. Especially for the scientists. Managers depend on them to provide the information needed to make responsible decisions. But fisheries scientists, like scientists in general, can tend to live in silos. Their natural urge is to focus. And ecosystem modeling requires a broad view. To create an Ecosystem Status Report, or ESR, each researcher brings along a piece of the puzzle.

It’s kind of like a hundred mechanics building a single car from the separate parts without a manual to guide them. Each mechanic brings one part and then they sit down under the shade tree and try figure out how they all bolt together. All this under the timeline imposed by the regulatory process. Heather Renner’s specialty is seabirds

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Creating the Ecosystem Status Report is extra work for scientists, and a new deadline to meet. So what motivates a bird scientist to contribute to a report that will be used for fish management? At a panel in the recent Alaska Marine Science Symposium, moderator Stephani Zador posed this question to Heather Renner:

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Panelist Franz Mueter related a question often posed to him:

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Moderator Zador had this question for Franz Mueter:

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Mueter also pointed to a lack of data on the human portion of the ecosystem:

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Yes, truly, when you add people to the mix things get really complex.