Assisting Science

Estimating biomass of Pacific sleeper shark utilizing deep water video

Pacific sleeper sharks (Somiosus pacificus) are deep water data poor sharks that live in the frigid waters of Alaska. While most people do not think sharks when thinking about Alaska, these charismatic sharks can grow to over 20 feet long and live upwards of 400 years. Our crew member Garrett is currently studying these deepwater giants at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He utilizes the Alexandra as an opportunity to collect data and financially support his research.

Machine learning approaches to estimate the size of Pacific sleeper shark in electronically monitored fleet

The Alexandra (our fishing vessel) is currently a part of the electronic monitoring program carried out by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). While we work hard to collect only our target species of Pacific halibut and black cod (sablefish) occasionally we catch non-target species including the above mentioned Pacific sleeper shark. We are currently assisting NMFS with a research project to train a machine learning algorithm to estimate the size of sleeper sharks caught in the electronic monitoring fleet.