"If we're going to be ready to manage Alaskan octopus as a commercial species, we need to know a lot more about them, starting with their reproductive seasons," said lead researcher Elizabeth Conners of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

Octopus caught incidentally in groundfish fisheries in federal waters off Alaska may be sold, but there is currently no commercial octopus fishery in federal waters. In state waters, within 3 miles of the coastline, directed octopus fishing is allowed only with a special permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Octopus are popular as bait in the halibut fisheries, but are also sold for human consumption, primarily in Europe and Asia, but also in domestic markets, Conners said.

"They get a good price for them, anywhere from 60 cents to one dollar a pound," compared with about 20 cents a pound for the cod, she said.

"In Alaska, the octopus are big enough to actually be scary," she said. The giant Pacific octopus, found from Oregon, and Washington over to Japan and all through Alaska, routinely get to 45 to 55 pounds in adulthood.

"Anyone who fishes pots for cod will tell you that they routinely see pretty large ones," Conners said. "Octopus love shelter and hiding holes of any kind, and they get into crab and cod pots. The Pacific cod pot fishery is where they generally see them and capture them. The ones sold for market usually come from cod pot boats.

"They are generally more scared of you than you are of them, but if people pick one up and handle them, they are likely to bite," she said. "They mostly eat crab, muscles and snails, but the big ones also eat fish."

"Scientists haven't learned enough about octopus in Alaska to provide for an ecosystem approach to management," said Doug DeMaster, director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. "The knowledge our researchers gain will be valuable on its own, but will be even more so if anyone wants to establish an octopus fishery here. We'd like to get ahead of that possibility with this North Pacific Research Board-funded project."

The North Pacific Research Board, a private entity that supports fisheries research, has budgeted $164,361 for charter time and equipment for the studies. Research staff for the project are employees of NOAA and the University of Alaska. Congress created NPRB in 1997 in response to a nearly 20-year negotiation between the state of Alaska and the federal government over stewardship of Alaska's Arctic Coast.

Federal fisheries officials hadn't been too concerned with octopus until recently, and were grouped in the category of "other species," but now there is a motion before the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to divide the other species category into separate subgroups. Conners said she expected that within the next few years a total catch cap for octopus caught commercially might be established.

Before any commercial octopus fishery were to begin, federal fisheries regulators would have to determine what the overfishing limit would be," and right now we do not have enough information to set a reasonable catch limit," she said.

The main focus of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center study will be the giant Pacific octopus, enteroctopus dofleini, which are the largest in the world. While seven or eight species of octopus can be found in Alaskan waters, giant Pacific octopus are the largest and are most likely to be encountered by fishermen and divers.

Like all octopus, giant Pacific octopus have eight arms lined with sucker disks, swim by forcing water 'jets' through a muscular funnel and can change skin color and patterns to blend in with their background. Because they have no bones, they can squeeze into tight places. They do, however, have a hard beak for eating mollusks, crabs and fish found in Alaska waters. If an octopus can't pull open or bite prey, it will secrete fluid that softens the shell. When the shell is softened, it is scraped away to make a tiny hole. Through this hole, the octopus secretes a toxin that paralyzes the prey and begins to dissolve the connective tissue. The octopus then pulls apart the prey and eats.

Researchers are asking local divers near Kodiak, Dutch Harbor and Juneau to watch for octopus. If one is sighted, divers are asked not to disturb the octopus, but to note the generally location, time and date of the sighting, and whether other octopus are in the area. Knowing the size of the octopus is helpful; i.e. softball sized, basketball sized or beach ball sized. Researchers are also asking divers to report any sightings of octopus dens with eggs in them. Octopus eggs are dense strands of tiny yellowish eggs hanging from the roof of a care or den.

Once the octopus dens are located in the nearshore water of Kodiak Island, in the central Gulf of Alaska, and at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, researchers will re-visit the sites monthly from late summer or fall of 2010 until the early spring of 2011 to determine when the eggs hatch and when the octopus larvae leave the den.

While research has been done on octopus biology in British Columbia and Japan, NOAA researchers need to know what the reproductive seasons in Alaska are as a basis for management policy, "and we want to know if seasons are the same in the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska and Southeast Alaska, Conners said.

The researchers will examine octopus captured in routine bottom trawl surveys as well as octopus provided by cooperating commercial pot fishermen and fisheries observers. Researchers will also test and develop habitat pot gear specifically designed for catching octopus.

The research plan also includes a pilot tagging study in Dutch Harbor by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist Reid Brewer. Both tagging and habitat pot fishing are being developed as techniques to use in future studies for octopus management.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman.@alaskajournal.com.