Juvenile Rockfish Difficult to Identify

by Wyatt Fournier from the Northwest Explorer 

Juvenile rockfish.

After the Northwest Explorer departed from Juneau and began traveling towards the western study sites, we stopped to sample two transects outside of Yakutat and Kayak Island that represent the central Gulf of Alaska. The outer station, offshore from Yakutat at a depth of 200m, proved to be worth the stop as we caught juvenile rockfish in our trawl. These rockfish, of the Sebastes genus, are very difficult to identify during their early life stage and will require genetic analysis in the laboratory to determine the species. Our hope is that they will prove to be Pacific ocean perch, which is one of our focal species for this study and an important commercial fish in Alaska.