Island Setting
Humans and Bering Sea Resources

The Bering Sea region sustains over 100,000 people, including the Aleut, Yup’ik, Cup’ik, and Inupiat peoples living on Alaska’s coasts and islands; and the Aleut, Yup’ik, and Chukchi peoples living on Russia’s coasts and islands (WWF and TNC 1999). The region is also a seasonal or year-round home to some of the world’s largest marine mammal, bird, fish, and invertebrate populations, and supports some of the world’s largest commercial harvests of seafood, including groundfish, cod, pollock, salmon, and crabs (Loughlin et al. 1999).

Salmon drying on racks at Unalaska, 1888 (NARA).

The history of interactions between humans and resources of the Bering Sea stretches back thousands of years and can be separated into four distinct, though overlapping, periods (Loughlin and Jones 1984). The first period is subsistence hunting by Natives, dating from circa (ca.) 28,000 years ago to present. The second period is the commercial harvest of northern fur seals, dating from 1786 to 1984. The third period is the commercial harvest of whales and walruses, dating from 1845 to ca. 1914. The fourth period is the commercial harvest of fish and shellfish, dating from ca. 1952 to present.