The Alaska seafood industry supporting science threatened by federal layoffs, biologists and fishermen say

Rebecca Howard is a marine biologist who spent six years in higher education – largely funded by federal scholarships – to win a doctorate at Oregon State University. Last April, it was hired by the branch of the Fisheries of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration to join the annual surveys of Alaska which collect vital data for the management of the largest seafood harvests in the country.

This year, Howard, based in Seattle, was to spend three weeks aboard an chartered fishing boat, the sampling of the marine life of the Gulf of Alaska, and three additional weeks on a survey in the sea in Bering. But on February 27, more than 10 months after a year-long probation, she received an email from a vice-admiral from the Noaa informing her that she was terminated. His capacity, his knowledge “and / or his skills” no longer correspond to the needs of the agency.

“That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to stay at this job, “said Howard in an interview with Seattle, where she worked in the main branch of Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “It was a huge disappointment.”

Howard was one of the 13 members of the licensed staff of the Science Center, a reduction of about 5% of this scientific workforce, according to sources from the Noaa Professional Employees Association, a union representing a large part of the staff. She was an early victim in what should be an extended wave of endowment reductions in the Noaa fisheries offices and research centers in Alaska, the northwest of the Pacific and other coastal regions while the administration of President Donald Trump unleashes a wider campaign to reduce federal spending.

NOAA Fisheries has refused to release numbers on the scope of discounts to date, which has left Congress delegations to scramble to try to follow the reductions in force in Alaska and other states. Meanwhile, the NOAA and other branches of federal governments must develop plans, due on March 13 for more substantial labor reductions, according to a memorandum of February 26 of the two executive branches.

The NOAA Fisheries plays a huge role in the management of the American seafood harvest, most of which take place in a federal area of ​​200 miles off the coast of the country and in 2022 were evaluated at nearly $ 6 billion in commercial landings. The main responsibilities of the agency also include research in progress to help follow the populations of marine mammals, fish and other marine species.

All this makes American fishing fleets closely linked to the work of the NOAA workers whose tasks range from the execution of equity investigations which help to prevent overfishing to write harvest regulations that open the harvest seasons.

And, in the ranks of Noaa fisheries, and among some in the fishing industry, there is an increasing discomfort that the agency’s ability to carry out basic missions could be compromised by the pressure of the Trump administration to reduce the federal government.

“The blind dismissal of the NOAA staff could paralyze our fisheries,” said Linda Behnken, executive director of the Association of Fishermen Longline based in Sitka. “The impact on resources and the seafood industry will be substantial unless the administration corrects the course.”

The first round of endowment cuts on the NOAA fisheries was accompanied by a frost on most credit card expenses. A biologist at the Alaska Fisheries science center, who asked for anonymity to avoid reprisals, said that she would generally use her credit card to buy gloves, life vests, extensions and other equipment necessary for cruises to come off Alaska.

“I try to understand how to provide our surveys with the equipment we really need. It’s really frustrating, ”said the biologist. “We are going to do our best.”

NOAA fishing cards are also generally used to finance hotels and other expenses for staff members to attend meetings of the regional fishing councils, which are a mixture of federal state, industry and other representatives who help develop harvest limits and other fishing rules.

“The only journey that is authorized at the moment is criticism of the mission,” said Jennifer Quan, the regional administrator of the west coast, who was one of the few NOAA fisheals authorized to attend a meeting of the Pacific Fishey Management Council which started last week in Vancouver, Washington. The council covers the federal fisheries of the northwest and California.

In its opening remarks, Quan also said: “We are still, in general, in a state of mourning on the loss of staff”, but we have not offered details on the dismissals, so far, in the offices of the west coast. During a period of public comments Thursday at the Pacific Council meeting, union representatives said that the Northwest Fisheries Science Center had dismissed nine probationary members who belonged to their chapter. They included an oceanographic modeler and a scientist studying the changing migration models of HKE – also known as Merlan – which support a fishery of the major northwest commercial chalumery.

Trump administration policies to shake up the federal bureaucracy have also created new regulatory challenges for NOAA fisheries. Trump’s decrees include a 60 -day freezing request on any new regulations, as well as a separate initiative aimed at deleting 10 regulations for each new one that is implemented.

These orders complicate the publication of rules in the federal register to open certain fisheries which are supposed to occur in the coming weeks.

Quan cited these decrees in its remarks Thursday at the Pacific Fishey Management Council. “We are still waiting for explicit advice” on how to proceed, she said.

In Alaska, commercial fishermen are unstable by the prospect of not having the rules published, and individual fishing allowances made by regional officials of the NOAA fisheries, in time for an opening scheduled for March 20 of the Ploutan and the S-Fish (also known as the Black Cod). Poutan fisheries should also open British Columbia on that date, and Alaska fishermen do not want to be beaten on the early market by Canadian competitors, according to Behnken, Executive Director of the Longline Association.

In response to a Beacon survey in Alaska, a spokesperson for the NOAA peachmen said: “The annual process for the authorization of the Fisheries de Partan and Sablefish is underway, and we will inform the participants in fishing if we are planning a delay in the emission of individual fishing quota or the opening of the commercial and the fishery of the sand.

The uncertainty about the regulatory process was also noted by industry representatives in a letter of March 4 sent by 170 fishing companies and associations to the US Secretary of Trade Howard Lutnick and to the Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.

“American fisheries depend strongly on the regulatory process to open the fishing season and implement reasonable management measures, and any delay or inconsistency can have immediate and serious consequences for the means of subsistence of our fishermen,” said the letter.

As they are preparing for the next series of staff cuts, regional Noaa fishing leaders have struggled to maintain morale.

A federal fishing employee, who spoke under the guise of anonymity due to concerns about reprisals, said that regional staff had been invited to identify what work is necessary to perform legally required tasks. But the details of the force reduction plan should be “determined in the chain”.

Some NOAA workers have also been angry by the tactics of billionaire Elon Musk, which launched the American service Dog with the declared objective of increasing federal efficiency. In a February email that Musk ordered to be sent by the staff management office, federal employees were invited to list five things they had done the previous week or risk losing their jobs.

“It was essentially a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was able to respond to an email,” wrote Musk in an article on February 23 on X, the social media platform he owns. “Many people for a raw awakening and a large dose of reality. They don’t understand yet but they will.

Andrew Dimond, a biologist at the Alaska Center for Juneau-based sciences, received the email when there was still hope that he would survive his probation in a new job that offered more stability and advancement opportunities than the short-term contract and posts he had since 2015.

Dimond’s investigation work involved weeks at sea pulling 12, sometimes 2 p.m., on the deck for stains such as the marking of black cod when they got on board, and remove the bones from the ear for sampling. His other tasks included surveying the Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska, which, the day after the ocean warming, helped predict a huge slowdown in stocks.

Dimond tried not to pay much attention to the move by federal workers by Musk.

“I am disappointed that it draws the attention it makes,” said Dimond. “Because I like work. It’s great, but people are too. They are all hard workers who care about the things they do. »»

On February 27, Dimond received the same form notification as Rebecca Howard, informing him of her dismissal by a vice-admiral of the Noaa. This email occurred 11 days before its probation status would have ended.

Since then, there have been changes to a personnel management personnel management service that has prepared the land for the layoff of probationary workers. The revised document, updated on March 4, said that it was up to the agencies to decide to unload these workers.

Dimond and Howard hope that they will be questioned at work. Otherwise, they hope to find a way to find their jobs thanks to an administrative call process or, perhaps, in the courts.

Originally published by the Alaska tagAn independent and non -partisan press organization that covers the government of the State of Alaska.