U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Life History and Demographic Characteristics of Arctic Cisco, Dolly Varden, and Other Fish Species in the Barter Island Region of Northern Alaska Alaska Fisheries Technical Report Number 101 Fairbanks Fish and Wildlife Field Office Fairbanks, Alaska November 2008 The Alaska Region Fisheries Program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducts fisheries monitoring and population assessment studies throughout many areas of Alaska. Dedicated professional staff located in Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks, and Kenai Fish and Wildlife Field Offices and the Anchorage Conservation Genetics Laboratory serve as the core of the Program’s fisheries management study efforts. Administrative and technical support is provided by staff in the Anchorage Regional Office. Our program works closely with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and other partners to conserve and restore Alaska’s fish populations and aquatic habitats. Additional information about the Fisheries Program and work conducted by our field offices can be obtained at: http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/index.htm The Alaska Region Fisheries Program reports its study findings through two regional publication series. The Alaska Fisheries Data Series was established to provide timely dissemination of data to local managers and for inclusion in agency databases. The Alaska Fisheries Technical Reports publishes scientific findings from single and multi-year studies that have undergone more extensive peer review and statistical testing. Additionally, some study results are published in a variety of professional fisheries journals. Disclaimer: The use of trade names of commercial products in this report does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use by the federal government. Alaska Fisheries Technical Report Number 101, November 2008 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Life History and Demographic Characteristics of Arctic Cisco, Dolly Varden, and Other Fish Species in the Barter Island Region of Northern Alaska Randy J. Brown Abstract Arctic cisco Coregonus autumnalis and Dolly Varden Salvelinus malma are major fishery resources for people in coastal regions of northern Alaska and Yukon Territories. Concerted attempts to document the presence and monitor the relative abundance of these species and others began in the 1970s in response to regional development activities associated with oil exploration and extraction. Numerous sampling projects have taken place in coastal lagoon systems from the Colville River in the west to the Mackenzie River in the east. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted an initial four year fyke net sampling program in the Barter Island region from 1988 to 1991 and repeated the sampling program 15 years later, from 2003 to 2005, to examine long-term trends in demographic composition, relative abundance, and body condition of Arctic cisco and Dolly Varden. The relative abundance of Arctic cisco varied widely among years primarily because of the tremendous variation in the number of age 0 fish moving west along the coast. The abundance of mature-size Arctic cisco, the primary demographic group harvested in coastal fisheries, remained relatively stable across years and between the early and late years of the project. Maturity indices, age, tagging, and relative abundance data suggested that Arctic cisco encountered in the Barter Island region come from overwintering habitats in both the Colville and Mackenzie River deltas. Immature Dolly Varden dominated the catch during all sampling years. With few exceptions, the relative abundance of mature Dolly Varden, the primary demographic group harvested in coastal fisheries, remained stable across years and between the early and late years of the project. Catch rates for mature Dolly Varden declined earlier in the season than for immature fish, presumably because of time constraints associated with fall spawning in freshwater habitats. In general, body condition of Dolly Varden improved between early and late summer seasons, as expected. Information regarding other fish species, such as overwintering origins, length frequency data, or relative abundance, is presented with minimal discussion. Introduction Arctic cisco Coregonus autumnalis and Dolly Varden Salvelinus malma are the primary fishery resources harvested by people living in Kaktovik (Craig 1987; Pedersen and Linn 2005), a community located on Barter Island in the Beaufort Sea in northeast Alaska (Figure 1). Most of the annual harvest of these fish, which can amount to 3,000 kg or more per species, occurs in Author: Randy J. Brown is a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He can be contacted at Fairbanks Fish and Wildlife Field Office, 101 12th Ave., Rm. 110, Fairbanks, AK 99701 or [email protected]. Alaska Fisheries Technical Report Number 101, November 2008 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Figure 1. The Barter Island region in northeast Alaska. near-shore marine or lagoon environments during the summer months. A much smaller harvest of Dolly Varden occurs in freshwater habitats during the winter months. Annual harvests of fish are thought to comprise 14% or more of all subsistence food resources harvested by residents of Kaktovik (see discussion in Craig 1987). Arctic cisco and Dolly Varden are considered to be very important subsistence resources to the people of Kaktovik. Concern over possible impacts of oil development activities on fishery resources in northern Alaska and Canada has inspired several decades of research designed initially to identify species occurrence and distribution and later to understand the ecology of Arctic fish populations and the aquatic systems they lived in (Craig and Haldorson 1981). As a result of this research, a great deal of information, as summarized by Craig (1989), has been gained on origins, demographics, migration routes, and limiting factors on populations. Annual cycles of temperature, salinity, ice-cover, and flow in freshwater, brackish, and marine environments profoundly influence migration timing, overwintering behavior, and geographical distribution of fish (Craig and McCart 1975; McCart 1980; Craig 1984; Jarvela and Thorsteinson 1999; Carmack and Macdonald 2002; Dunton et al. 2006; Fechhelm et al. 2007). Attempts have been made to correlate the relative abundance of fish in certain locations with measurable environmental factors or development activities with some success. Perhaps the most striking example of environmental correlation has been the influence of wind-driven marine currents during summer on the recruitment of age 0 Arctic cisco to the Colville River delta, and the subsequent effects that recruitment has on the fishery several years later (Moulton and Seavey 2004; Fechhelm et al. 2007). Correlating causeway-induced habitat effects in the Prudhoe Bay region, such as localized temperature and salinity anomalies due to changes in along-shore currents, with fish growth, distribution, and relative abundance has been more challenging with less definitive results (e.g., Fechhelm et al. 1989; Gallaway et al. 1991; Griffiths et al. 1992; Martin and 2 Alaska Fisheries Technical Report Number 101, November 2008 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Gallaway 1994; Griffiths et al. 1998; Fechhelm 1999). This may be due to a variety of factors including a lack of correlation, natural variation in fish populations, the confounding of natural and causeway-induced habitat variation, and the difficulty of isolating causes and effects in such a complex environment. Arctic cisco in the Colville River delta were originally thought to be from local populations like the other coregonid species found there; least cisco C. sardinella, humpback whitefish C. pidschian, and broad whitefish C. nasus. Attempts to find pre-spawning Arctic cisco in the Colville River during the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, failed to identify fish preparing to spawn (McElderry and Craig 1981). These findings, along with the knowledge that there were spawning populations of Arctic cisco in the Mackenzie River drainage, approximately 650 km to the east (Hatfield et al. 1972a, 1972b), led Gallaway et al. (1983) to propose that Colville River Arctic cisco originated in the Mackenzie River. Many of the environmental and ecological details involved in the Arctic cisco life history story have been clarified over the intervening 25 years, but the basic premise of Gallaway et al.’s (1983) proposal still holds true (Fechhelm et al. 2007). Arctic cisco found in Beaufort Sea coastal waters in northern Alaska originate in the Mackenzie River (Fechhelm et al. 2007), where as many as five spawning populations are thought to exist (Dillinger et al. 1992). They recruit to Alaska waters as age 0 juveniles during years when persistent east winds generate favorable coastal currents during the summer (Fechhelm and Griffiths 1990). During winter, the marine environment gets too cold (approximately -2°C) for salmonid fishes (Black 1957; Craig 1989; DeVries and Cheng 2005). In response, Arctic cisco retreat to brackish environments, but not into fresh water, where reduced salinity prevents such extreme cooling of the water (Craig 1989; Schmidt et al. 1989; Moulton and Seavey 2004). Known overwintering habitats for Arctic cisco are in the Mackenzie River delta region, approximately 350 km to the east of Barter Island, the Anderson River delta even farther east, and in the Colville and Sagavanirktok River deltas, approximately 300 km to the west (Figure 2) (Craig 1984; Schmidt et al. 1989; Bond and