Currents and Connections Post #5

Today we're excited to welcome guest blogger, Ella Kelly, to Currents and Connections. Ella is an undergraduate student attending the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska. Ella is currently interning at Alaska Fisheries Science Center's Auke Bay Laboratories. She is helping with the NOAA Fisheries juvenile Pacific cod habitat research survey in the Gulf of Alaska. The objective of this research is to increase our understanding of juvenile Pacific cod habitat in coastal areas and their overwinter survival in the Gulf of Alaska. Read on to learn more about Ella's journey into the field of marine science and her adventures aboard the Lady Sea.

A photo of me on the skiff as we head to our first sampling location. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

Hello! My name is Ella.

Despite growing up in the landlocked state of Utah, I have always loved and chased the ocean. I am from the desert side of Utah Lake. My childhood was defined by catching scorpions, listening to the coyotes dusky song, and always avoiding stepping on rattlers. When there was water in the desert, life blossomed around it. In such a dry place, everything was always searching for water-as was I. Each spring, the creek in the gulch behind my house would run, and it would add this sparkle that the dusty landscape was so thirsty for.

Desert Gulch in Eagle Mountain, Utah. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Ella Kelly.

Because of this love for water-as the bringer of life-I knew I needed to get somewhere with more of it! So, I moved to Juneau, Alaska in August of 2024 to study marine biology at the University of Alaska Southeast, a place so full of water that some might consider it a nuisance.

My Introduction to NOAA Fisheries

During the Spring semester of 2025, I took an independent study course entitled: "Exploring Marine Science Education and Scientific Storytelling." The course explored how scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center's Auke Bay Laboratories share their research with each other and the public. I worked with the education and outreach team to experiment with different communication methods and products, and I developed my very own personalized communication toolkit (that I'm putting into practice now)!

I also had the opportunity to help with education events such as Science, Technology Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) nights at local elementary schools and "Alaska Sea Week."

Here I am at one of the touch tanks at Auke Bay Labs helping one of our student visitors hold a heart cockle.

2025 marked the 55th anniversary of Sea Week in Juneau. For 55 years, NOAA Fisheries Auke Bay Laboratories has partnered with the Juneau School District to host elementary school students for Sea Week activities. This year, Sea Week ran from March 31 to May 14. We offered field trips to the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute, and joined teachers and their classes at the beach to help with tide pool exploration during the negative tides. We guided students through a series of hands-on activities that encouraged youth to notice, observe, and learn about the sea creatures in their own backyard.

Through that independent study, I learned a lot about science communication and networking. I landed a very impressive internship and made connections, one of whom was with Darcie Neff, a fisheries biologist with Alaska Biomap Scientific Services. And now I am embarking on the Gulf of Alaska juvenile Pacific cod habitat research cruise with her and other scientists I admire!

Juvenile Pacific Cod Habitat Research

Juvenile Pacific cod (scale in centimeters). Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

The overarching goal of this project is to groundtruth a model that predicts where juvenile Pacific cod settle and grow for their first year of life in nearshore nursery areas around the Gulf of Alaska. Pacific cod are one of the more abundant groundfish (fish that live near the bottom of the ocean) in the Gulf of Alaska and the second-largest commercial groundfish catch in Alaska and virtually all of the United States.

In recent years, there have been dramatic declines (83% since 2013) in Pacific cod abundance in the Gulf of Alaska. One of the leading hypotheses is that unusually warm ocean conditions between 2014 and 2016 negatively impacted juvenile cod health. The warmer water reduced their prey and increased their metabolic needs, likely leading to starvation.

To evaluate juvenile health, NOAA scientists developed a model that predicts where the larval cod drift from offshore spawning grounds to the productive nearshore waters around the Gulf of Alaska where they feed and grow their first year. The survey I am working on is part of a 3-year field-study to enumerate juvenile cod abundance using baited underwater cameras and beach seines. We are also evaluating the health of the juvenile cod we catch to identify characteristics that produce the healthiest cod.

Map of study area. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

We started out in Kodiak, Alaska and did our first round of sampling around Spruce Island. We will be out for 25 days. We are stopping at roughly 32 bays along the Kodiak Archipelago, the Alaska Peninsula, the Shumagin Islands, and the Kenai Peninsula. You can see our current location by clicking here!

Our Vessel and Crew

The Lady Sea. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

For the next 25 days, I will be living aboard the Lady Sea, a 56'' landing craft captained by skipper Tyler Randolph (Kodiak Water Taxi and Transportation). The scientific crew includes me, two other interns, two NOAA fisheries biologists, and an independent fisheries biologist. So far our days have started early, with breakfast at around 5:30 am. All of our food was prepared by a local caterer in Kodiak, and is stored in a big freezer on the back of the boat. The last couple mornings we have gotten out to the beaches an hour or two before low tide. We try to sample four beaches per bay. It takes about 4 hours to get that done. When we get back to the boat we identify, measure and sample our fish, eat lunch, work some more on fish, and head to the next bay for the next low tide series. Once we've done all of our seining and sampling, we head to our bunks. They are quite spacious for a boat, and pretty comfy.

A Brief Overview of Field Sampling

We are using two methods to gather information on the abundance and distribution of Pacific cod juveniles-beach seines and baited underwater or drop cameras.

A beach seine takes place on a beach (duh) and entails a crew of four, a skiff, a number of buckets, sieves, and a big, long net. First, three of our crew step off the skiff onto the beach. One crew member fills several 5 gallon buckets with seawater and installs an air bubbler in each bucket. It is important to keep the water aerated, as the buckets will house the fish we catch until they are sampled. A second crew member holds onto the end of a line that is tied to one end of the net while the skiff sets the 39 meter net in a semicircle in the water around the beach. The skiff drops the other end of the line off to the third crew member on the opposite side of the beach. Both people holding the lines pull in the net which has two sizes of mesh. The wings of the net have 10 mm mesh that scares the fish into the center of the net that has a smaller, 3.2 mm mesh bag (aka codend). As we pull the net onto the beach, we create a sort of a bowl with the codend and scoop the catch into one of the 5 gallon buckets where we identify the species and move them onto the boat for sampling. More on the sampling process in my next blog post!

Fionn O'Duggan (GIS Technician with Geospatial Services) and I pulled in the beach seine line while Johanna Page (NOAA Fisheries Research Biologist) scrambled over rocks and cobbles to fill the 5 gallon buckets with water and install the aerators. Credit: NOAA Fisheries. Here I am pulling in a seine net with Fionn and Darcie. The codend is visible just under the water. Credit: NOAA Fisheries. Darcie is holding a pink salmon, young-of-the-year. Credit: NOAA Fisheries. We catch a lot of cool fish other than Pacific cod. Here is a colorful male rock greenling! Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

The drop cameras are mounted on metal platforms, with an extended pole which houses bait to attract fish. The cameras pick up footage of the young Pacific cod eating in the eelgrass beds. To deploy the cameras, a couple of crew members take the skiff, and drop the cameras in depths of 10-20 feet near shore. The cameras are left for 15 minutes, and take photos every few seconds. The data are used to count young of year, juvenile and adult Pacific cod.

An underwater camera used to count juvenile Pacific cod. A bait jar in front of the camera attracts fish in the area. Credit: NOAA Fisheries. Fionn and I helped load camera gear into one of the skiffs. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

Kodiak is incredibly beautiful, and so far I have seen lots of sea otters, a puffin, a humpback whale, kingfishers, harbor seals, Steller sea lions, two brown bears and plenty of bald eagles. There will certainly be more photos and videos to come!

An abandoned salmon and clam cannery we set out to explore. Credit: NOAA Fisheries. I kissed a starry flounder before releasing it back to the ocean. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

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