But why is the Bering Sea colder lately? That’s damned interesting. And if pollock, base of the region’s major commercial fishery falter as is feared they could, what species might flourish or migrate in to replace them? What do the people on the fishing boats think about scientific expeditions that could urge lower annual quotas for the catch?
When one reads a report on most anything on ksjtracker’s beat and radar screen, and it’s stuffed with anecdote backed by facts and references, and one is left bursting with questions and an appetite for more, one has to judge the story a success. Back in June we got wind (prev. post) of a freelancer, Wendee Holtcamp, who got herself a ride on an NSF-funded research vessel into the Bering Sea – south of the strait of the same name at the border of the Arctic Ocean, north of the Aleutians.
We caught her back then, before her month-long sojourn in that remote sea, due to her blogging on it at Nature’s Great Beyond. NatureNews, and the magazine itself, have her summary news report up this week. It is lively, detailed, and as I say, it left me eager for more (Some may be found – I didn’t check closely – in the archive of her blogs for the whole trip). For instance, there’s the spectacle of recent chilling of those waters opening the way for a re-expansion of some plankton species that had retreated into the Arctic proper. What’s going on there? Did the waters cool in place or was there a big flow of chilled sea water out of the Arctic (that might imply a flood of warm water coming around Greenland)? One source says walruses are ugly, which is a joke because he pretends in this piece’s telling to disdain most anything with a backbone. Well, how those whiskered beasts doing with less sea ice around in the Bering?
Upshot: More sign of a changing biz. At one time, chances of a freelancer getting a reporter’s bunk like this were somewhat slim, given that newspapers and other major mass media outlets had enough staff with enough travel budget to elbow the bloggers and other venturesome entrepreneurs of the trade aside. Ms. Holtcamp reports she more than broke even on the trip and has another piece on it in the works for the mag-journal BioScience. Should you wonder more : her site.
– Charlie Petit
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