As I've outlined in previous videos, there's a lot of mining going on in the Arctic. A great deal of oil and natural gas production and exploration. These are big drivers of the economy of the North. But now I want to turn attention to another sector of the economy which is important, which is fisheries. Now, what are the key species that we're talking about here? Alaska Pollock, also known as Walleye Pollock, cod, Halibut, salmon and crab, these are some of the key species. There is evidence of Northward Migration of species, which is interesting as the Arctic oceans warm up as the Arctic loses its sea ice cover, and a concerned over the changing Arctic and the loss of sea ice has led to a moratorium on commercial fishing in the Arctic high seas area. I'll get to that in a bit. Now, let's review a few of these key species. First one, the Alaska or Walleye Pollock, here I'm showing a picture of one of them. Somewhat plain looking fish, at least in my view, but there's what it looks like. Now, what's the range? You can see there is a lot, the range, a lot of it is in the Bering Sea. That's where a lot of it is. Some in the Gulf of Alaska, some of it extending up through the Bering strait into the Chukchi sea. A lot of it is what you call sub-Arctic, but that's okay, it's close enough. We're going to call it Arctic here. Now, these are not big fish. Here you see image of people netting Walleye Pollock, here is their [inaudible] As you can see, just by the scale of the people against the fish, these are not particularly large fish at all, but they're very important. One of the things that really well-known for is use in fish sticks. If you like fish sticks, if you go buy frozen fish sticks in the store, it's very likely that these are Alaska or Walleye Pollock. Now, we're going to turn attention. Now here's the Atlantic cod, highly valued as a food fish. It's very delicious fish, especially when very fresh. I had the opportunity to have my share of it back when I was a young boy growing up in Maine, for example. Now, they've been badly overfished historically and most of the big ones are gone. They're coming back at some level but there's still an issue about the stocks of Atlantic cod. Here's the range of the Atlantic cod I'm showing in this image that's in the blue. You can see that there found well into Arctic waters of the coast of small barred Novaya Zemlya in the Barents Sea, the Norwegian sea. You see all around a lot of the Southern coast of Greenland and also of course, along the Northeast coast of North America. But yeah, they have been badly overfished. But how big can they get? How big can an Atlantic cod actually get? The answer here is they can get up to a meter and a half that's five feet roughly, and 47 kilograms, 103 pounds. That's a pretty good size fish but really most of the big ones are gone, so you're relying on smaller fish. There are still a lot of concerns about the stocks of the Atlantic cod. Now, Atlantic Halibut. Here's just a little picture of an Atlantic Halibut, a big flatfish, one of the characteristics of flatfish is they've got both eyes at the top of their head. Another delicious food fish. These can get up to hundreds of pounds. Back when I was a lad back into coastal Maine, I used go fishing for flounder. Now, flounder's a flat fish. It's related in that sense to the Halibut as both eyes at the top of its head but when I was fishing for these, if I caught a 2-pound flounder, I thought I was doing well, well these things get way bigger. Now, are Halibut also found in the Pacific? The answer is absolutely yes. There are Pacific Halibut as well as Atlantic Halibut over here and Pacific Halibut. Pacific Halibut can get bigger, actually they the world's largest flat fish, Pacific Halibut, but yeah, delicious, just like The Atlantic Halibut. Here's the range of the Atlantic Halibut. As you can see, it's similar to the range of the cod, the Atlantic cod. You see it through a lot of the Arctic waters on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, all around the Southern coast of Greenland, off the coast of Northeastern or North America. That's their range. Now, sport fishing. Another big thing in the Arctic here we see a gentleman with his Arctic char that he caught from what I understand, he let that one go, but that's a quite a beautiful fish, Arctic char. You can go, I've never caught Arctic char but maybe someday I can. Now salmon. Here's salmon. The number of species of salmon that one finds in Arctic waters. I'm just showing some here, this sockeye, the chum. These are not to scale, I believe but yeah, salmon fisheries, both commercial and subsistence fishing. Back when I was around the Council of Alaska I caught some chum salmon. They're not supposed to be the best salmon, but an associate we had they would take these and smoke them and they were actually delicious like these chum salmon. You hear stories sometimes of schools of salmon coming up the river so thick you could walk across them. Well, I saw that ones up there near Council, was just a remarkable thing to see, and I hope that maybe you can as well, actually the ones that the thick schools of them where the pink salmon, also known as the humpback salmon. That's what I was looking at. Red King Crab, crab fishery. Yes, for those of you who love crab, well, this is where they come from. My wife can't eat them because she's allergic to shellfish unfortunately. That's a crustacean actually, it's not a shellfish. Crab fishing. There you are, like a lot of that going in the Bering Sea. There's a television shows about these things and they're very dangerous operation. Cold waters, icing conditions, really rough seas and things like that, but it does a big economic driver. Here is the range of the Red King Crab. Again, a lot of it in the Bering Sea area, Southern Bering Sea, some in the Gulf of Alaska. A lot of it's really sub-Arctic again, but it's pretty close to Arctic's, so we'll call it Arctic. Now, I mentioned a moratorium on fishing in the Arctic high seas, and the intent here is to protect the Arctic high seas until sensible regulations can be implemented. Now this moratorium has been ratified by the European Union, Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, China, and the USA. Arctic nations and non-Arctic nations, but those who were very interested in the Arctic. Now, let's go back briefly to things we discussed earlier about the United Nations Convention Law of the Sea. Remember in these waters or ocean water, we can divide them into different sectors as internal waters, they are landward of a baseline. Then 12 miles nautical miles out from the baseline is territorial seas. Then we go out to the exclusive economic zone that extends 200 nautical miles out from that baseline, and then beyond that, there's the high seas. Well, when you look at it this way in terms of the internal waters, territorial seas, exclusive economic zone, there turns out to be this hole in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, that is high seas that nobody owns. Here's where the concerned buys. Now, fishing had never occurred in these areas because of the ice, and getting out there was difficult. Basically there's a lot of sea ice so people weren't doing it. There was no way to do it. But as the Arctic loses its sea ice cover, the prospects or the idea that you could go and fish there has been risen, and there are real concerns about overfishing until sensible regulations can be developed. This is really another example of the international collaboration that we do see in the Arctic. There are squabbles, there's things like this in terms of exclusive economic zones and things like that but overall, we are seeing this coordination and collaboration in the Arctic, and this moratorium is another example of that. Thank you.
