Robin Barefield's Blog, page 5
November 3, 2019
Safety Regulations Forced Upon the Commercial Fishing Industry
In the 1970s and 80s, commercial crab fishing earned a deadly reputation, but fishermen opposed mandated safety regulations. With powerful politicians behind it, the commercial fishing industry fought against government interference of any kind, but when a bereaved mother took up the fight, Congress finally forced safety upon the most dangerous occupation in the United States.
Each summer, young men and women flock to Alaska, looking for adventure and a chance to make good money for a few months of work. They’ve heard the stories and watched shows like The Deadliest Catch, and they dream of adventure and riches. Unfortunately, though, the truth is not nearly as glamorous as the shows they’ve watched or the stories they’ve read. Topline fishing operations only want to hire experienced crew members who know what they are doing. The least appealing hire to the owner of a fishing boat is a kid out of college for the summer who wants to “experience life.” These eager young people are likely to find jobs on lower tier boats, the ones struggling to make ends meet.
In 1985, Peter Barry, a 20-year-old Yale anthropology
student, flew to Kodiak Island for a summer adventure. He was one of the annual
15,000 summer workers in the Alaska fishing industry. Barry met Gerald Bouchard
on a dock in Kodiak, and Bouchard, the captain of the Western Sea,
offered Barry a job as a crewman on his salmon seiner. Peter jumped at the
opportunity to work aboard a fishing boat in Alaska, and he called his parents
with the good news.
After a few days aboard the Western Sea, Peter sent
his parents a letter, and his tone sounded much less optimistic. He reported
the boat didn’t seem seaworthy, and the captain’s temper often flared, his
behavior erratic. Peter wanted to leave the vessel, but the captain threatened
him, and Peter decided to stay aboard awhile longer.
On August 20, 1985, a fisherman spotted the body of a young
man floating in the water near Kodiak Island. In the man’s pocket they found a
letter addressed to Peter Barry. The Western Sea was lost, and out of a
six-man crew, searchers found the bodies of only two other men. One of the bodies
recovered was Captain Gerald Bouchard’s, and a toxicology exam on Bouchard’s
body indicated he was high on cocaine the day the Western Sea went down.
Peter Barry’s father, Bob, flew to Kodiak and demanded
answers. Bob Barry was the former U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria and the current
head of the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Europe. When
Barry asked questions, he expected answers, but what he learned in Kodiak
appalled him. The crewman Peter had replaced on the Western Sea told
Barry the old wooden boat, built in 1915, was rotten and leaky and had no
pumps. The captain refused to spend money on safety gear, so the vessel had no
life raft, survival suits, life preservers, nor an EPIRB to transmit a distress
signal. The Western Sea was nothing more than a death trap with a
captain fueled by rage and cocaine.
What shocked Bob Barry and his wife, Peggy, more than
anything, though, was when they learned commercial fishing boats were not
required to carry safety gear or have annual inspections. Even though it was
the most dangerous industry in the United States, commercial fishing remained mostly
unregulated from the standpoint of safety.
Peggy Barry sank into depression after her son died, but
then she began to receive phone calls from others who had lost loved ones on
fishing boats. Peggy decided she needed to spearhead the movement to incite
change. Something needed to be done to regulate safety equipment and procedures
on commercial fishing boats.
Fishermen did not appreciate Peggy Barry’s interference, and
she was thought of by the industry as a “privileged outsider.” National
Fisherman quoted a lobbyist as saying, “Fishermen have been dying for
years, then one Yalie dies, and the whole world seems up in arms.”
Peggy ignored the push-back from fishermen and continued to approach
senators and representatives with her concerns. Representative Gary Studds from
Massachusetts agreed with Barry and took up her cause.
Because so many fishing boats, especially in Alaska, sank in
the mid-eighties, insurance premiums for commercial fishing boat owners jumped
dramatically. Insurance premiums on an average fishing vessel rose from $34,000
in 1976 to $169,000 in 1986. Congressmen from states supporting robust fishing
industries rushed to pass a bill for insurance relief. Studds saw this as a
chance to further his cause. If Congress could agree on a law requiring stiffer
safety regulations along with lower insurance premiums, perhaps it could
mandate safety for crew members on fishing boats.
Peggy Barry contacted the parents and wives of young men
(most lost crew members were young men) who had died on fishing boats, and with
an unflinching Peggy Barry by their sides, they addressed the Congressional
subcommittee on merchant marine and fisheries. Each loved-one told his or her
story and pleaded with the congressmen for safety reform in the commercial
fishing industry.
In the end, Peggy Barry and her comrades made some progress.
The Coast Guard could not support a provision in the proposed bill requiring
all fishing vessels to undergo stability tests. The Coast Guard also felt it
could not demand licensing for captains and crews. The final law required commercial
fishing vessels to carry life rafts, survival suits, and emergency radio
beacons. All crewmen must also take safety training, and a $5,000 penalty could
be imposed for failure to comply. The bill ordered the Coast Guard to terminate
the unsafe operation of any fishing vessel.
While this bill was a watered-down version of what Peggy
Barry wanted, it brought much-needed safety regulations to the most dangerous industry
in the U.S. While fishermen were not happy with the new law, indisputable proof
shows the new measures made their jobs less deadly. In the year 1983, long
before the bill demanding new safety measures, 245 commercial fishermen died at
sea. Over time, the death rate has dropped. Between 2000 and 2014, over 14-years,
179 individuals died in fishing-related incidents in Alaska. The mortality rate
has fallen to an average of 13 crew members per year. While this number is
still too high, it is an improvement.
If you would like to read more about the dangers of commercial fishing, I suggest the book, Lost at Sea by Patrick Dillon. He tells the true story of two ships mysteriously capsizing in the Bering Sea. I’ve read the book three times and was captivated each time by the way Dillon recounted this tragic tale.
[image error] Just Released – Karluk Bones
Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. You are invited to watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
Write caption…Mystery NewsletterSign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.
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The post Safety Regulations Forced Upon the Commercial Fishing Industry appeared first on Robin Barefield.
October 20, 2019
Crab Fishing: The Most Dangerous Job
Crab fishing in Alaska ranks as the most dangerous job in
the United States; and although new laws and regulations have made the occupation
safer than it was three decades ago, it still surpasses mining and logging as
the deadliest job in the U.S. Can you imagine working with cranes and
hydraulics on a pitching, rolling boat in heavy seas? Add a 700 lb. (317.5 kg)
crab pot with a long line tied to it, and you don’t know whether to look up,
look down, or hang on for the ride. Danger might come from any direction. Since
most crab fishing takes place in the winter, the temperature often drops below
freezing, and ice forms on the decks, rails, and gear, making everything
heavier and more slippery. A crew member who is seriously injured must often
wait hours or days to reach advanced medical care, and a broken bone can become
a death sentence.
In the mid-1970s, the death rate for commercial fishermen
soared to seventy-five times the U.S. national average for fatalities on the
job, and the mortality rate for crab fishing in Alaska in the winter peaked
twenty-five times higher than the death toll for the rest of the commercial
fishing industry. According to
statistics, it was nine times more dangerous for an individual to take a job
crab fishing in Alaska than it was for him to become a miner or logger, the two
next most hazardous jobs. In the 1980s, king crab became even more valuable, and
the death toll rose.
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Commercial fishermen seek valuable king crab in remote areas in the Gulf of Alaska, along the Aleutian Islands, and especially in the Bering Sea. All these areas experience brutal weather conditions in the winter. Under the surface of the chaotic Bering Sea thrives the most productive fishery in the world. The Bering Sea Basin records more seismic activity than any other region on earth, and earthquakes shake the ground, while volcanoes erupt, spewing smoke and lava. In the winter in the North Pacific, the warm, clockwise Japanese current collides with the frigid, counterclockwise Bering Current as well as with extremely cold-water masses flowing south from the arctic. Where these opposing currents meet, violent storms explode, impacting the entire North American continent. In the winter months, storm after storm descends upon the relatively shallow, narrow Bering Sea, and hurricane-force winds create fifty-foot (15.24 m) waves. In sub-zero temperatures, the waves overtake boats and freeze instantly, adding tons of ice and destabilizing vessels. The crews must grab baseball bats and sledgehammers and work furiously for hours, pounding ice off the decks and railings to keep the boats from sinking.
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Fishermen know danger lurks everywhere on the deck of a crab
boat. To keep the heavy crab pots from shifting in rolling seas, they are
stacked high and chained together when loaded on deck, but once the crew
unchains the pots in preparation for deployment, a falling or sliding pot can
crush a crewman. When a crewman launches a pot off the deck of the boat, he
must take care the trailing line doesn’t wrap around one of his ankles, or he
will be yanked overboard behind the pot. A pot swinging from the crane while it
is transported to the launcher becomes a 700 lb. (317.5 kg) wrecking ball in lurching
seas, and anyone in its way would unlikely survive the blow. A wave curling
over the side of the boat can knock an unprepared individual off his feet,
slamming him into the nearest barrier. Long hours and the repetitive work of
baiting and dropping crab pots leads to fatigue, and accidents happen when a
crewman loses focus.
A report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health indicated 128 per 100,000 Alaska fishermen perished on the job in
2007, making fishing in Alaska 26 times more dangerous than any other
occupation in the U.S. Fishing deaths make up a third of all occupational
fatalities in Alaska. Besides on-deck accidents, common causes of death for
crab fishermen include drowning and hypothermia caused by the boat capsizing or
the individual falling overboard. Eighty percent of crab fishery fatalities
result from drowning.
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A study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health determined out of 71 fishermen who fell overboard, only 17 wore a
personal flotation device, despite indisputable evidence showing a personal
flotation device makes an individual eight times more likely to survive a
boating accident.
Between twenty and forty fishing boats capsize in Alaska each year, but no mandatory safety review exists to determine the stability of commercial fishing boats. Stacking heavy crab pots on the deck of a boat and filling or emptying its fuel tanks or crab tanks affect the stability of a vessel, and installing heavy trawling gear on the deck for use in other fisheries, further impacts the sea-worthiness of the boat. When a boat plows through heavy seas and begins to make ice, the stability once again changes. To learn more about stability considerations on a fishing boat, I invite you to read my newsletter: The Mystery of the “A” Boats.
I can think of few jobs worse than working as a crew member on a commercial crab fishing boat. No amount of money could offset the terror and danger I would experience. Still, crab fishing has gotten safer over the past thirty years. In my next post, I will discuss how legislation forced some safety measures on an industry reluctant to accept government interference.
[image error] Just Released: Karluk Bones
Wrap yourself in an Alaska wilderness mystery
Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. You are invited to watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
Write caption…Mystery NewsletterSign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.
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The post Crab Fishing: The Most Dangerous Job appeared first on Robin Barefield.
October 6, 2019
Commercial King Crab Fishery
The red king crab fishery is Alaska’s top shellfish fishery, and red king crabs are the second most valuable species in the state behind sockeye (red) salmon. Commercial king crab fishing in the Bering Sea began in the 1950s. By the 1960s, 190 vessels from the United States, Norway, Japan, and Russia collectively earned millions of dollars harvesting king crab near Kodiak Island, and Kodiak earned the nickname, “King Crab Capitol of the World.” U.S. fishermen resented competing with foreign vessels in U.S. waters, so in 1976, President Gerald Ford signed the Magnuson Act, prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing within two-hundred miles of the U.S. coast. This act eliminated competition from other countries but did nothing to reduce the number of U.S. boats chasing the valuable king crabs.
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Record harvests for both red and blue king crabs occurred
from 1978 through 1981, with $235 million earned during the 1978/79 season. By
1983, though, both red and blue king crab populations crashed. Biologists have
proposed several explanations for the decline in king crab population,
including over-fishing, a reduction in the number of crabs surviving until
adulthood due to warmer waters and increased predation, and unintentional
bycatch in other fisheries. Unfortunately, despite much stricter commercial
fishing regulations over the past two decades, most of the depressed stocks
have not recovered.
The federal government and the State of Alaska jointly
manage the Bering Sea and Aleutian crab stocks, while the State of Alaska
solely manages the Gulf of Alaska stocks. Biologists employ the “three S’s” to
manage king crab fisheries. These are size, sex, and season. Harvested crabs
must be males over a certain size, and fishermen can only take them during a
specified season. The purpose of the size restriction is to allow male crabs to
reach maturity and mate at least once. The sex restriction protects females for
reproduction, and seasons are set to safeguard crabs during the mating and
molting periods.
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Before 2005, managers regulated the king crab fishery using
a derby-style system. Under this system, managers opened the season for a set
number of days, and anyone with a boat and crab pots could join in the fishery.
This type of fishery was dangerous because small boats attempted to fish in
treacherous weather for the opportunity of harvesting valuable king crabs.
Also, the short season encouraged crews to work non-stop, resulting in fatigue
and increased susceptibility to accidents on deck. After 2005, the fishery switched
to an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) system, where an established boat owner was
given an allotment he could fill at a more relaxed pace. While safer, the IFQ
system put many crews out of work because the owners of smaller boats received
such limited quotas, they could not even meet their operating expenses. When
managers enacted the IFQ system, the crab fishing fleet shrank from over 250 to
89 boats. Alaska boat owners balked at the new system since many of the large
fishing operations receiving the majority of the IFQs were based in Washington
or Oregon. Alaskans complained the new law forced Alaskans out of a fishery in
their own state.
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Most king crab boats range between 40 and 200 ft. (12.2 – 61
m). In the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands, the average king crab boat
measures over 100 ft. (30.5 m) in length. King crabs are fished using large
traps called pots. Each pot weighs between 600 and 700 lbs. (272 – 317.5 kg)
and are made from steel frames covered with nylon webbing. Crewmen bait a pot
with chopped herring and then drop it to the bottom of the ocean where it soaks
for two to three days. The crew releases the pots in long lines, known as
strings, so they are easy to find and retrieve. Pots are pulled back onto the
boat with the aid of a powerful hydraulic system. Once the pot arrives on
board, the crew sorts the catch, returning undersized and female crabs to the
ocean. Legal crabs are stored live in a holding tank until the boat returns to
port to offload to a processor.
In my next post, I’ll describe some of the many dangers commercial
king crab fishermen face, from hazards on deck to stability issues on vessels
carrying heavy gear and crab pots.
My latest Alaska Wilderness Mystery Novel, Karluk Bones is now available! Grab a copy and take a trip to wild, mysterious Kodiak Island!
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Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. You are invited to watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
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Mystery NewsletterSign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.
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The post Commercial King Crab Fishery appeared first on Robin Barefield.
September 22, 2019
Karluk Bones
I am excited to announce the release of my fourth novel, Karluk Bones!
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When two men
recently discharged from the air force set out for a hunting trip on Kodiak
Island in Alaska, they expect the adventure of a lifetime. Instead, they find themselves
embroiled in a never-ending nightmare.
More than forty
years later, biologist Jane Marcus and her friends discover human remains near
Karluk Lake in the middle of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. Jane soon
learns a bullet was responsible for shattering the skull they found. What
happened? Was the gunshot wound the result of a suicide, or was it homicide?
Who was this individual who died in the middle of the wilderness, and when did
he die? Jane can’t stop asking questions, and she turns to Alaska State Trooper
Sergeant Dan Patterson for answers.
Sergeant Patterson
doesn’t have time for Jane and her questions because he is investigating the
recent murder of a floatplane pilot on the island. Was the pilot shot by one of
his passengers, by another pilot, by campers in the area where his body was
found, or did his wife hire someone to kill him? The number of suspects in the
case overwhelms Patterson, but a notebook in the pocket of the dead pilot
provides clues to the last weeks of the pilot’s life.
With no time to
spare for old bones, Patterson gives Jane permission to research the remains
she found near Karluk Lake. Jane’s investigation into the bones seems harmless
to Patterson, but she awakens a decades-old crime which some believed they’d
buried long ago.
Will Patterson find
who murdered the pilot before the killer leaves the island, and will Jane’s
curiosity put her life in danger? What evil lurks at Karluk Lake?
Karluk Bones
is based on four true tales, and if you read it and want to know more about the
true stories, send me an e-mail.
The book is
available through the following links and at other online booksellers:
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The audiobook of my third novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter, is also now available through Audible. The book is narrated by the wonderful actress Carol Herman.
Thank you, and I hope you enjoy
my books.
The post Karluk Bones appeared first on Robin Barefield.
September 8, 2019
Biology and Life Cycle of the King Crab
Researchers do not fully understand the biology and life cycles of any of the king crab species, but red king crabs have been the most extensively researched. Scarlet king crabs live very deep where they are challenging to study, so biologists know little about their life history. The following describes the life cycle of the red king crab, except where noted.
Before mating, a female king crab must molt by shedding her
shell. A few weeks before molting, the female begins releasing pheromones into
the water, signaling to males in the area she will soon be ready to mate. When
the male finds the female, he grasps her first pair of legs in his claws and
holds her facing him for several days. Meanwhile, the female begins to molt.
Her old shell separates, and it takes her only 15 minutes to climb out of the
shell. A new, soft carapace now covers her, and she absorbs water and swells,
making her appear larger.
After the female has molted, the male turns her upside down
and places her beneath him. He inserts his ventral surface under her abdominal
flap, where he releases strings of sperm. The female releases her ova from
paired openings on the underside of her second walking legs. As soon as each
ovum is exposed to seawater, a sac forms around it, and the sperm fertilizes
the ovum. This process can be repeated several times over the next few hours.
Once he finishes, the male releases the female and shows no further interest in
her.
The female incubates the eggs under her tail flap for eleven to twelve months. A female king crab, depending on her species and her age, will carry between 45,000 and 500,000 eggs. Blue king crabs have bigger eggs and a lower fecundity than red king crabs. The female releases her larvae between February and April over a period of approximately 29 days. When they first hatch, the larvae resemble tiny shrimp. The larvae pass through four zoeal instar stages, each lasting between ten days to two weeks, and they finally transition into the stage which resembles a small crab. The larvae eat both phytoplankton and zooplankton and become more carnivorous as they age. When the young crabs finally settle to the bottom, they are about the size of a dime and are very susceptible to predation. The larvae settle from July through early September.
[image error]Red King Crab Pod –NOAA
Young king crabs migrate to
depths of 150 ft. or deeper. Red king crabs are known to form giant pods, and
biologists believe they assemble in these pods to protect against predators.
Other king crab species have not been observed forming pods. Around age four or
five, king crabs move to shallower water during the spring migration to join
the adults.
Red king crabs spawn every year, but blue king crabs
reproduce every two years. After spawning, adult red king crabs settle at
depths between 90 and 200 ft. for the remainder of the year. Red king crabs seem to prefer soft sand. Red
and blue king crabs are known as shallow-water species, while golden king crabs
settle at least 300-feet deep, and scarlet king crabs seek out even deeper
habitats.
King crabs are opportunistic feeders, and they eat sponges,
barnacles, sand dollars, brittle stars, sea stars, worms, clams, mussels,
snails, crabs, and other crustaceans. What they eat depends on their size and
available prey species.
King crabs have several predators, including fishes such as
Pacific cod, halibut, sculpins, and yellowfin sole. A king crab will prey upon a
smaller king crab, and octopuses and sea otters also eat king crabs. Nemertean
worms consume king crab embryos.
King crabs are also susceptible to parasites and many
diseases. The Rhizocehpalan barnacle invades a king crab’s internal tissues,
producing an immunosuppressive agent to cloak its presence. The barnacle
eventually castrates the crab and stunts its growth. Liparid fish parasitize
king crabs by depositing their eggs in the gill chambers of the crabs. The egg
mass interferes with respiration and can lead to death.
Biologists estimate king crabs can live twenty to thirty years.
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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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The post Biology and Life Cycle of the King Crab appeared first on Robin Barefield.
August 25, 2019
Alaska King Crab
The family Lithodidae, known as the stone or king crabs, has
16 genera and 95 known species. Four species are commercially fished in Alaskan
waters. These are the red king crabs (Paralithodes camtschaticus), the
blue king crabs (Paralithodes platypus), the golden king crabs (Lithodes
aequispinus), and the scarlet king crabs (Lithodes couesi). Of
these, red king crabs are the most abundant and extensively studied species. Scarlet
king crabs are much smaller than the other three species, and because they live
in very deep water, researchers know little about their life cycle. Since scarlet
crabs are smaller than red, blue and golden king crabs, they are not commercially
significant.
[image error]Red King Crab
All four species have
different but overlapping distributions throughout the Gulf of Alaska, Bering
Sea, and the Aleutian Islands. Red king crabs range from British Columbia to
Japan and north to the Bering Sea. They are most abundant in Bristol Bay and
the Kodiak Archipelago. Red king crabs exist from the intertidal zone to 600
ft. (183 m) or deeper.
King crabs receive their common names from the color of
their carapaces. All king crabs are decapods, meaning they have ten legs. Unlike
brachyuran crabs, which are considered “true” crabs, king crabs are not
symmetrical but have an asymmetrical abdomen, asymmetrical first pair of
walking legs, and modified fifth pair of walking legs. Biologists think king
crabs are more closely related to hermit crabs than they are to brachyuran
crabs such as Dungeness crabs.
[image error]Blue King Crab
King crabs have tails or abdomens which are fan-shaped and
are tucked underneath the rear of the shell. Of their five pairs of legs, the
first is their claws or pincers. The right claw is usually the largest. The
next three pairs are their walking legs, and the fifth pair of legs are small
and usually tucked underneath the rear of their carapace. Adult females use
these specialized legs to clean their embryos, and males use them to transfer sperm
to females during mating.
A crab’s skeleton is its external shell made of calcium. In
order to grow, a crab must periodically shed and grow a new, larger carapace,
during a process called molting. Juveniles molt frequently during their first
few years but less often when they reach sexual maturity at the age of four or
five years. Adult females must molt in order to mate, but a male does not need
to shed his shell to mate. Adult female red king crabs molt and mate once a
year, but males often keep the same shell for two years. King crabs shed their
shells by absorbing water, causing the shell to crack.
[image error]Golden King Crab
Red king crabs are the largest of the king crab species.
Blue crabs are the second largest, and golden king crabs are the third largest.
Female red king crabs reach a maximum weight of 10.5 lbs. (4.8 kg), and males
grow as large as 24 lbs. (10.9 kg). A large male has a leg span of nearly five
ft. (1.52 m) and a carapace as long as 11 inches (27.9 cm). King crabs can live
20 to 30 years.
[image error]Scarlet King Crab
Red, blue, and golden king crabs migrate annually from
nearshore to offshore. They migrate to shallow water in the late winter or
early spring where the female’s embryos hatch. Adult females and some adult
males then molt, and mating occurs before the crabs return to deep water. Once
they have mated, adults segregate by sex. Biologists studying male red king
crabs near Kodiak noted some males migrate up to 100 miles (161 km) round-trip
annually, and at times, they move as fast as a mile (1.6 km) per day. While
depth ranges and habitats overlap, red, blue, gold, and scarlet king crabs
rarely co-exist.
In my next post, I will cover the lifecycle and feeding
habits of king crabs as well as the status of king crab populations and the
threats they face.
Please sign up below for my newsletter about true murder and mystery in Alaska, and I invite you to listen to my podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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Mystery NewsletterSign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.
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The post Alaska King Crab appeared first on Robin Barefield.
August 11, 2019
Alaska Crab
One of the many images the name “Alaska” conjures is a
platter of steaming crab legs accompanied by a ramekin of drawn butter. King
crab ranks with lobster as one of the premiere shellfish delicacies in the
world.
While shellfish connoisseurs have long appreciated king
crab, tanner crab (snow crab), and Dungeness crab from Alaska, the television series
The Deadliest Catch made folks aware of the rigors and dangers involved
in catching the beautiful crabs they craved. Although the show is sometimes
overly dramatic, there is no question that while crab fishing can be highly
profitable, it is often dangerous.
Over my next several posts, I plan to explore in detail some
of the species of crabs inhabiting Alaska’s waters, and then I will describe
the seasons, techniques, and perils of fishing for these crabs.
I have been busy lately. Not only did I leap into
podcasting, but I recently finished writing my fourth novel, Karluk Bones.
The book is now in my publisher’s hands and should be available soon. I
completed the rough draft of this novel last December and finally finished
editing it in July. It is a tremendous job to write and edit a book!
I have also been working with the incredible actress Carol
Herman to produce an audiobook of The Fisherman’s Daughter, and I am
happy to announce Carol finished her narration, and the book should be
available soon. I like to provide audiobook editions of my novels because I
enjoy listening to audiobooks. Between my work at our lodge and my writing
career, I have little spare time to read, so I listen to audiobooks while I
work in the yard, cook, paint, or run the boat. I love listening to a good
story.
With two big projects out of the way, I can now focus on new
challenges. My first goal is to finish my wildlife book, and my second is to
work on my next novel. Meanwhile, I will continue with my mystery newsletter,
my podcast, and my blog.
I am looking forward to learning more about crab, and my
next post will delve into the types and ranges of the four commercially valuable
king crab species in Alaska.
As always, I would love to have you leave comments,
questions, ideas, and even critiques. Thank you for reading!
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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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The post Alaska Crab appeared first on Robin Barefield.
July 28, 2019
What Would You Do if You Encountered a Bear in the Woods?
What would you do if you saw a bear in the woods? It’s fun
to imagine hypothetical situations and wonder how you would react in a
high-stress scenario, but for anyone traveling to Alaska or anywhere else with
wild bear populations, you should seriously consider how you would react if you
encountered a bear in the woods. Don’t venture into the Alaska bush with no
bear protection plan in mind. Educate yourself, learn about bear behavior, ways
to avoid bears, and what to do if you encounter a bear.
Bertie from Effortless Outdoors recently sent me a link to his article titled, What To Do If You See A Bear (And Why) and asked me to mention it on my blog. The piece is very detailed and well-researched. My one complaint is he didn’t separate Kodiak bears (or even Alaskan brown bears) from grizzly bears. While all brown bears are members of the same species, grizzlies and coastal brown bears exist in different environments and often do not react the same way to humans. Kodiak bears have more to eat and grow larger than grizzlies, but grizzlies are often more aggressive than Kodiak bears toward humans. This one criticism aside, though, Bertie’s article is good and provides some interesting facts.
Unless your goal is to see a bear, follow Bertie’s tips for
avoiding a bear encounter. He helps separate fact from fiction. For example,
studies show those obnoxious little bear bells that annoy your hiking
companions do not deter bears and may even attract them. A whistle is also a
bad idea.
Keep in mind, bears have individual personalities and do not all react to humans in the same way. A bear’s response to a person depends, in part, upon his past experiences with people. If a bear rarely sees humans, he could be startled, curious, or terrified to spot a person on his trail. On the other hand, a bear living in an area commonly visited by tourists might not even look at you as you pass him in the woods. Black bears behave differently from brown bears, and a polar bear’s reaction to a human is so dissimilar from the response of a black or brown bear, it’s a bit misleading even to include polar bears in the same article.
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My husband, Mike Munsey, and I take guests bear viewing each
summer. Mike knows Kodiak bears well. He understands their body language and
vocalizations and can quickly spot a bear acting aggressively. He would be the
first to tell you, though, that bears in other areas of Alaska often exhibit
different behaviors from the ones we encounter.
If you are planning to travel in bear country, research the
bears in the area you plan to visit. Contact biologists and ask what
information you can download about the bears you might encounter, and inquire into
methods you can use to protect yourself. If you are camping, you will want
bear-proof food containers, and if you plan to camp in an area with a high
concentration of bears, you might consider purchasing a portable electric fence.
If you want to see bears but don’t know anything about them,
hire a guide. You have no business trying to get close to a bear on your own if
you have no bear experience.
One of my favorite parts of Bertie’s article is where he
uses an illustration to demonstrate the likelihood of being killed by a bear.
As the graphic clearly shows, you are much more likely to be killed by a dog, a
cow, or lightning than you are to be mauled and killed by a bear.
The bottom line if you encounter a bear in the woods: respect the bear’s intelligence and strength, but don’t fear the animal. The bear is likely more terrified of an encounter with you than you are of seeing him.
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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. Sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
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The post What Would You Do if You Encountered a Bear in the Woods? appeared first on Robin Barefield.
July 14, 2019
Why are Gray Whales Dying?
One-hundred-seventy-one gray whales have washed up on Pacific beaches from Mexico to Alaska so far this year. Seventy-eight whales were spotted off the coast of Mexico, 85 in U.S. waters, and eight near Canada. Of the whales found along the U.S. Pacific Coast, 37 dead whales were spotted in California, five in Oregon, 29 in Washington, and 14 in Alaska. Since most whales sink to the ocean floor when they die, the 171 recovered carcasses probably represent only a fraction of the number of gray whales that have died on their northward migration this spring and summer.
In my last post, I wrote about tufted puffins dying on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, and I explained how their deaths are likely linked to the warming ocean temperatures in the Bering Sea. It comes as no surprise to learn puffins aren’t the only animals affected by warming water temperatures and melting sea ice. From the smallest zooplankton to the most massive whales, all animals in the region are feeling the impact of climate change.
Gray whales have one of the longest migrations of any
mammal. In the summer they feed in the Arctic
in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas, and in the fall, they migrate to
their calving grounds in the southern Gulf of California and Baja Mexico, a
migration of 5000 to 7000 miles (8,050 – 11,275 km) each way. Their average swimming speed is only 3 to 5
mph (5-8 km/hr), so this migration takes a long time.
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The known deaths of 171 whales have induced the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to declare an “unusual mortality event” and launch an investigation to determine why the whales are dying. Necropsies of the whales indicate most have starved to death. Ship strikes killed four found in San Francisco Bay, and since gray whales don’t usually enter this area, researchers assume these animals were stressed and perhaps searching for food.
Investigators aren’t sure why the whales are starving, but
they think it’s possible the gray whale population has exceeded its carrying
capacity under current conditions. In other words, there are too many gray
whales and not enough food.
We know gray whales have been impacted by ocean warming in recent years. During the summer of 2018, waters in the Bering Sea soared nine degrees warmer than average. These increasing seawater temperatures have reduced winter ice cover in the region, which has led to a reduction in productivity. Primary productivity in the northern Bering Sea declined 70% from 1988 to 2004. This previously ice-dominated, shallow ecosystem favored large communities of benthic amphipods (the favorite food of gray whales), but it has now been replaced by an ecosystem dominated by smaller species of zooplankton, such as krill. Gray whales have responded by migrating further north to the Chukchi Sea, but amphipods might now be disappearing from this region as well, forcing gray whales to consume less nutritious krill, and krill might not contain the percentage of fatty acids the whales need to build adequate blubber.
Scientists expect to find more dead gray whales this summer, and one was recently washed up on a beach on Kodiak Island. NOAA continues to monitor the mortality event and posts updates on this website.
If you enjoy listening to podcasts, I invite you to check out mine: Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
[image error] http://murder-in-the-last-frontier.blubrry.net.
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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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The post Why are Gray Whales Dying? appeared first on Robin Barefield.
June 30, 2019
Tufted Puffins Warn Us of Our Changing Climate
Tufted puffins are shouting a warning from the middle of the
Bering Sea, and we need to listen to them. As our oceans warm, these beautiful birds
are starving to death.
Alaska’s four Pribilof Islands sit between mainland Alaska
and Russia. The islands support more than two million seabirds, which survive
by feeding on plankton and fish in the nutrient-rich Bering Sea. With so many
birds in one area, it’s not unusual to occasionally find dead ones, but alarm
bells sounded when biologists learned more than 350 dead birds had washed up on
the beaches of St. Paul Island, the largest of the Pribilof Islands. This number
is seventy times higher than the annual average count of five bird carcasses. Stranger
still, most of these dead birds were tufted puffins, a bird that rarely washes
up on the beach after it dies.
Biologists knew the birds they’d found dead represented only a fraction of the total, so they applied a computer model using wind patterns and ocean currents to determine what percentage of the dead birds likely reached the shore. From this percentage, they calculated somewhere between 3,150 and 8,800 birds perished in late 2016. Even if you choose to believe the low end of this estimate, the numbers are astounding.
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Two species of puffins live in Alaskan waters. The horned puffin (Fratercula corniculata) and the tufted puffin (Fratercula cirrhata) belong to the family Alcidae, which also includes guillemots, murres, murrelets, auklets, and auks. A tufted puffin has a black body, a white face, and a red and yellow bill. Its common name is derived from the long tufts of yellow feathers curling back from behind the eye on each side of the head. Adult tufted puffins measure 14 inches (36 cm) in length and weigh 1.7 lbs. (771 g).
What killed the puffins?
The dead birds recovered from the beach appeared emaciated
with weak flight muscles and almost no body fat. The birds had starved to death,
but why?
Puffins feed on small fish, and until recently, many resided
in the Pribilof Islands so they could gorge themselves on the abundance of fish
in the rich Bering Sea. The icy Bering Sea is rapidly changing, though, as the
ocean warms. As the sea ice recedes and thins, pollock, cod, and other fish can
no longer find the super-cooled water at the edges of the ice sheet where they
like to congregate. Instead, the fish disperse, making them more difficult for
puffins to find and catch. Puffins now must travel further to find food,
burning precious calories.
Also, as the northern ocean warms, dominant plankton species
have shifted from large, meaty forms to smaller less energy-rich species. In
turn, the plankton-eating fish are also thinner and provide fewer nutrients to the
animals that eat them.
Puffins molt from August to October, and as they replace
their feathers, the birds can barely fly and dive, making it difficult to feed
themselves unless prey species are plentiful. Biologists were not surprised to
learn most of the dead puffins they found on the beaches were in the middle of
molting. The birds couldn’t travel far to travel to find food while molting,
and they starved to death.
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Puffins are not the only species affected by the loss of sea
ice in the Bering Sea, and the diminished food source is not the only issue
related to the melting ice. Without sea ice clinging to the coast, winter storms
now batter the rocky cliffs, causing erosion at an unprecedented rate. These
cliffs provide homes for seabirds, and some of the rocky beaches are breeding
sites for endangered Steller sea lions.
The Pribilof Islands are a distant place most humans will never visit, but the drama playing out on those remote islands demands our attention now. The puffins are trying to tell us our environment is changing at an alarming rate.
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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
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The post Tufted Puffins Warn Us of Our Changing Climate appeared first on Robin Barefield.
