Bering Sea

I devoured the Aug. 21 article on the Bering Sea, and applaud John Balzar for an excellent and balanced story. I hope you will do regular follow-ups, apprising us of new developments in the attempt to balance human and planetary needs in that region. It is a continual source of amazement to me how few people are aware that most of the world's fisheries are seriously depleted. May I recommend even more coverage of this crucial fact? For starters, how about a story about illegal takes and the likely depletion of the Patagonian tooth fish (Chilean sea bass)

When the earth shook off the coast of Japan on Friday, the magnitude 8.9 quake became the fifth strongest since 1900. According to records kept by the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center, the largest quake remains the one in Chile in 1960 that measured 9.5. That was followed by the 1964 quake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, at 9.2; the 2004 quake off of Sumatra, at 9.1; and the 1952 quake in Kamchatka, a peninsula in eastern Russia...

The mangled remains of a World War II Navy submarine were found in the Bering Sea, more than six decades after the vessel disappeared off the Aleutian Island of Kiska. The discovery of the Grunion culminates a five-year search led by the sons of its commander, Mannert Abele, and may finally shine a light on the mysterious last moments of the vessel.

Phil Harris, the salty sea captain on Discovery Channel's top-rated "Deadliest Catch," had prepped his sons for tragedy. Fishing the frigid Bering Sea for crabs and living a hard-charging, chain-smoking lifestyle, Harris figured he might not make it to his golden years. What he couldn't have anticipated, though, was that his stroke, hospitalization and eventual death from a pulmonary embolism would be captured on film. Tuesday night's "Deadliest Catch" episode chronicles the last days of his life and his death, and its impact on his sons and shipmates, Josh and Jake, and his colleagues on the reality series.

The Bering Sea had calmed slightly as the Coast Guard resumed its search for three people missing from a crab boat that sank in stormy weather. A man lost overboard from another boat was presumed dead and the search for him was suspended. Three crew members of the 92-foot Big Valley were found by the Coast Guard after the boat sank -- all wearing bulky survival suits -- but only one was alive. Three other crewmen remain missing.

A Coast Guard helicopter crashed into the Bering Sea with 10 people aboard while conducting a rescue after a disabled freighter grounded on an island in southwestern Alaska. The Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley picked up four of the 10 people. Six were unaccounted for, the Coast Guard said. The Selendang Ayu, a 738-foot freighter loaded with soybeans and 440,000 gallons of fuel, broke in two when it ran aground on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian chain, the Coast Guard said.

A crewman was swept overboard Tuesday from a ship searching for survivors of an explosion and fire on a fishing vessel in the Bering Sea, and became the third person missing in the frigid water. The man was aboard the Clipper Express, a 138-foot Seattle-based vessel that on Sunday had rescued two people swimming in survival suits after they abandoned a burning fishing vessel.

The Soviet Union has acknowledged that it has in custody a San Francisco man who wandered across the U. S.-Soviet border on the Bering Sea ice pack last week, a U. S. Senate aide said Thursday. The Soviets said John Weymouth is in good health, and will be released at Little Diomede Island next week, said Steve Hansen in the Washington office of Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska.

One man died and a man and two children were missing Wednesday after their whaling boat capsized off St. Lawrence Island in the frigid Bering Sea. Six people were onboard the 16-foot boat, which was made of animal skins. The boat was part of group of boats hunting whales from the Yup'ik Eskimo community of Gambell, Alaska state troopers said. The missing are the village mayor, Jason Nowpakahok, 38; his daughter, Yolanda Nowpakahok, 11; and his nephew, Leonard Nowpakahok, 11.

Soviet planes trying to see the largest Navy exercise in the Bering Sea since World War II were chased away by fighters from an aircraft carrier three times this week, a military spokesman said Friday. "Yes, there was a Soviet attempt to have reconnaissance against the battle group, and, yes, U.S. Navy fighter planes from the aircraft carrier intercepted the aircraft," Lt. Cmdr. Charles Connor said.

SERIES Web Soup: This series spotlighting viral videos and Internet oddities returns for another season (8 p.m. G4). Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Kathy Griffin guest stars as a lesbian-rights activist in a new episode (9 p.m. NBC). Cougar Town: Beverly D'Angelo guest stars as Laurie's (Busy Phillips) wild and crazy mom (9:30 p.m. ABC). Nip/Tuck: The plastic surgery drama starring Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh ends its seven-season run (10 p.m. FX)

Most days in Nome, you're not likely to run into anybody you didn't see at the Breakers Bar on Friday night. More than 500 roadless miles from Anchorage, rugged tundra and frigid Bering Sea waters have a way of discouraging visitors. So it was a big deal when the World, a 644-foot residential cruise ship with condos costing several million dollars apiece, dropped anchor during the summer for a two-day look-see. "We never had a ship anywhere near this size before," Chamber of Commerce director Mitch Erickson said.

Four years after the dwindling sea otters of southwest Alaska were placed on the Endangered Species List, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated nearly 5,900 square miles as critical habitat for otters in the Aleutian Islands, Bering Sea and Alaska Peninsula. Near-shore areas were chosen because most of the creatures that sea otters eat -- sea urchins, crabs, octopuses and some bottom fish -- are found in shallow waters, which also provide the best protection from marine predators.

The giant factory fishing boats that take billions of pounds of pollock from Alaska's Bering Sea would face major limits on salmon caught accidentally in their nets under controversial regulations recommended Monday. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council endorsed rules intended to protect the steeply plummeting salmon stocks throughout the Pacific Northwest and guarantee more fish for villages across western Alaska.

Ribbon seals do not face extinction and don't need to be added to the endangered species list, the government said Tuesday. Because of the melting of sea ice caused by global warming, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was petitioned in 2007 to list the seals as endangered. The agency said it was difficult to determine the exact number of ribbon seals. It did estimate, however, that there are at least 200,000 in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk.

Hubert Kokuluk squints with his one good eye to examine the tiny polar bear he has just carved from a fragment of walrus tusk. He isn't happy with the yellowish hue, but good ivory is hard to come by these days, since quickly melting sea ice has made it extremely difficult for his Inupiaq Eskimo community to carry out the traditional annual spring walrus hunt. Though walruses are federally protected, Alaska Natives have subsistence rights to hunt them and rely on the meat, skin, intestines and tusks -- for food, clothing and boat coverings and to carve the ivory jewelry and souvenirs that are a significant source of income.

A federal panel has ordered emergency limits on the Bering Sea catch of pollock--the most important U.S. commercial seafood--to make more of the fish available for endangered Steller sea lions. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which reports to the U.S. Department of Commerce, mandated the restrictions late on Sunday after days of negotiations and bitter protests from the fishing industry, which argued that the limits are too severe, and environmentalists, who said they are too weak.

Hunched over the steering wheel in rubber boots and jeans, Paul Fuhs guided his bouncing, mud-splattered truck along a rutted road past docks crowded with fishing vessels. "It's the most highly sophisticated fishing fleet in the world," he said, gesturing toward the boats. "There's nothing like this anywhere else." Fuhs, 39, an expert in underwater explosives, is the unpaid mayor and chief booster of Unalaska--a hotbed of high technology, high finance and high hopes.

"Deadliest Catch," "Ice Road Truckers," "Black Gold," "Ax Men": They're like snuff films in a way. On the dangerous jobs documented on these programs, grave tragedy is always just around the corner, and to watch these shows is, in a sense, to root for death. When nothing bad happens, the cloud of the macabre that gives these shows their tension gets lighter and lighter. And thankfully, these shows consistently fall short: Nothing catastrophic happens, and so there is no real payoff other than watching big bruisers of men tackle almost comically difficult tasks and complete them, satisfying only enthusiasts of an efficient workplace.

On the island of St. Paul, winter is marked by the opening of the opilio crab fishery, the start of high school basketball and the annual arrival of the tax preparers. Like most communities off the road system, there are no tax professionals among the 460 residents of the Bering Sea fishing port, 300 miles west of the Alaska mainland. So each winter, volunteer accountants and students from as far off as upstate New York board tiny planes bound for St. Paul and dozens of other bush villages to prepare tax returns for free.