ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A commercial fishing boat has pulled up what could have been one of the oldest creatures in Alaska – a giant rockfish estimated to be about a century old.
The 44-inch, 60-pound female shortraker rockfish was caught last month by the catcher-processor Kodiak Enterprise in the Bering Sea.
The Seattle-based vessel was trawling for pollock. On one drag, the ship’s big net pulled up an estimated 75 tons of pollock plus 10 bright-orange rockfish.
Crewmen alerted Michael Myers, factory manager of the Kodiak Enterprise. He has fished in the Bering Sea since 1988 but never saw a rockfish that big.
Myers is a regular at show-and-tell time at his sons’ school. He immediately thought that he’d save the fish for federal researchers – after the elementary school children got a look at it.
“I thought, ‘They’re going to love that,’” he said from his home in Marysville.
Myers ordered the big rockfish to be frozen whole.
The day after he got back to Washington, he brought the big fish to Immaculate Conception Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Everett. Other than one preschooler who was frightened by the fish, the reaction ranged from “cool” to “eeew,” Myers said.
That was subdued, Myers said, compared to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists.
“They were like 9-year-olds on Christmas morning,” Myers said. “They were giddy.”
Researchers examined the fish. They removed an ear bone, the otolith, which contains growth rings similar to rings on tree trunks.
They estimate the rockfish was 90 to 115 years old, toward the upper end of the known age limit for shortraker rockfish.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
