Food
Do kelp farms change sea life? A study in Alaska
NOAA scientists compared two kelp farm sites near Juneau with similar sites without a farm and found no major difference.
Does a kelp farm change the sea life around it? A team of scientists in Alaska set out to answer this question, and for the places they studied, the answer appears to be no. Kelp is a type of large brown seaweed, and a growing number of farms along the coast of Alaska now grow it in the sea.
The research was led by NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which worked together with a local kelp farm about 10 miles west of Juneau, the state capital. The farm's two sites cover 10 and 25 acres, and several kelp species that are native to the area are grown there, including bull kelp, split kelp and sugar kelp. NOAA Fisheries, a U.S. government agency, described the study and its results in a feature story on September 16, 2026.
Word in this story
The natural home of an animal or plant: the place and conditions where it usually lives or grows.
As a result, a kelp farm creates a new kind of habitat that exists for only part of the year.