NOAA buys $51,900 in stomach analyses of stranded Alaska marine mammals

NOAA has awarded the Alaska Department of Fish and Game $51,900 to analyze the stomach contents and diets of marine mammals that strand on Alaska shores, according to records posted to USAspending.gov.

It is a purchase order for professional services, not a grant, competed among three bidders. NOAA obligated $51,900 for the two years from Sept. 30, 2026 through Sept. 29, 2028, about $25,950 a year, against a potential $105,357 if it exercises options running to 2030.

Anna Bryan of Fish and Game and six colleagues, writing in Marine Mammal Science in June, examined prey remains from 13 killer whales stranded in Alaska from 2005 to 2021. Six were residents, the fish-eating type, six were transients, which hunt marine mammals, and one was an offshore animal. One resident whale died of sepsis after ingesting multiple pieces of fishing gear, including three different types of hooks. The same work produced the first known report of an elephant seal taken as prey by transient killer whales in Alaska, and documented a salmon shark eaten by the offshore whale.

NOAA Fisheries states on its pinniped entanglement page that "every year many seals and sea lions in Alaska unnecessarily suffer or die from ingesting fishing gear or getting caught in marine debris." The agency lists salmon fishery hooks and flashers, longline gear, spinners and bait hooks among the swallowed items. An earlier NOAA compilation estimated longline gear directly killed about 154 marine mammals in Alaska groundfish fisheries between 1990 and 2001.

NOAA has also identified gear loss and damage from marine mammal entanglements as a financial and operational cost to Alaska's commercial longline and salmon fishing fleets. That burden falls on the same industry whose gear turns up in stranded animals' stomachs.

The analyses feed the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network database, which NOAA maintains under Title IV of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The database records live and dead reports statewide.

Stranded, entangled or dead marine mammals can be reported to the statewide 24-hour hotline, 877-925-7773.