Melting ice in the Bering Sea causes massive environmental changes

Denny Akeya holds a Pacific Cod, one of many caught on longlines off Savoonga, Alaska, while out fishing for halibut.

Derek Akeya hopes for calm waters and a lucrative catch when fishing from a skiff in the Bering Sea that surrounds his island village. But on this windy late summer day, waves toss about the boat as Akeya stands in the bow, straining to pull up a line of herring-baited hooks from the rocky bottom.

Instead of bringing aboard halibut – worth more than US$5 (RM21) per 0.45kg back on shore – this string of gear yields four large but far less valuable Pacific cod, voracious bottom feeders whose numbers in recent years have exploded in these northern reaches.