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Researchers looking into the decline of Steller sea lions over the last decade noticed that the concentration of mercury levels in lion pups was increasing in some parts of the Aleutian Islands — but they didn’t know why. Now, a group of scientists from around the nation are working to solve that mystery with a research project called Aleutian Mercury Dynamics. The project’s goal is to create a timeline to see mercury levels in the Aleutian Islands over the last few thousand years.

Researchers looking into the decline of Steller sea lions have noticed that the concentration of mercury levels in lion pups was increasing in some parts of the Aleutian Islands; UCSD administrators say they anticipate ending the testing requirement for students who play contact sports, and that they need to start considering what other layers of mitigation measures to start peeling back; and a fisherman from Seldovia is collecting stories from fellow Gulf of Alaska fishermen that will eventually be sent to the Library of Congress.

The Pacific cod fishery may have started about ten years earlier than originally thought, at least on a small-scale level, according to a recent peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Anthropological Research.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter and its 140 crew members returned to California late last month after a nearly 80-day patrol in the Bering Sea. The 418-foot Waesche — a vessel longer than a football field — traveled more than 12,000 miles since departing Alameda in November. Its patrol spanned the West Coast, Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska.

People living in Aleutian communities are no strangers to the occasional earthquake. But in recent years, the region has seen some ramped up seismic activity, including a magnitude-6.2 earthquake that hit just about 40 miles south of Unalaska earlier this month. KUCB’s Maggie Nelson sat down with Rob Witter, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, to hear more about the island’s recent earthquake and how that fits into the larger picture of seismic activity in the Aleutians.

Seismic activity in the Aleutians has increased in recent years, including a magnitude-6.2 earthquake that hit just 40 miles south of Unalaska earlier this month; the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled against a group of young people who sued the state trying to change its approach to fossil fuel production; and Monday is the deadline to apply for seats on three different community advisory groups.

A collection of audio reels made in the Aleutian region in the 1970s was digitized and will soon be available online through the University of Alaska Fairbanks.The recordings were part of a school project that started in 1977 when a group of Unalaska students and their teacher Ray Hudson started collecting texts about the culture, language and history of the Aleutians. They called themselves the “Cuttlefish Class” – a name they picked out together – and they called their project the “Cuttlefish Series.”The students put together six hefty volumes meant to bring the island community and Unangax̂ culture into the classroom. They contain things like fishing stories, letters, recipes for alodics (an Unangax̂ form of fry bread), as well as memories from Makushin and the other lost villages that were forcibly evacuated during World War II.

The M/V Kennicott will replace the Tustumena on some of its summer sailings, but the Aleutians are going to take a big hit. Passengers on the May ferry can still ride, but the replacement ship is too large to dock at Akutan and False Pass. That means there will be no ferry service to those communities until the Tustumena is repaired in July, and the June sailing has been cancelled altogether.

The family of a toddler killed last month in St. Paul is advocating to bring his body home, after the first homicides in the small Pribilof Island community in 15 years; the M/V Tustumena won’t be making it out to the Aleutian chain until July at the earliest; and, while some see the Alaska Bycatch Task Force as a possible turning point, others say they’re skeptical of what it can accomplish.

The Army Corps of Engineers is moving closer to dealing with a contaminated World War II-era military site long abandoned in the Aleutian Islands. At a meeting Wednesday night in Unalaska, representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers said they would send a contractor to Chernofski Harbor in May. They aim to remove around 800 tons of soil and debris that was contaminated by diesel oil tanks during World War II. The cleanup site covers more than 1,200 acres in Chernofski Harbor, on the southwestern edge of Unalaska Island. Chernofski village was inhabited for thousands of years, but people stopped living there in the early 20th century, and the navy operated a port there from 1942 to 1945.