August 12 , 2022 — A federal court ruling this week has thrown into doubt the future of a valuable commercial salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska.
Alaska Anticipates Limited Salted Salmon Roe Production and Air Freight to Japan
May 17, 2022 — The Copper River salmon fishery, which is the start of Alaska salmon fishing season in Alaska, opened today, May 16, which is one day earlier than last year.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the first day of the season opener is set from 7 am for 12 hours on May 17, and fishing restrictions continue for king salmon as usual for resource protection, Suisan Keizai reports.
According to the previous forecast, the Fish & Game said that the number of sockeye salmon fishing in the Copper River area would increase to 1,432,000 fish this summer, including the returning to the hatchery, which is more than double the previous year’s level, but 34% less than the average of the past 10 years. Last year, the actual catch was 404,653, 68% less than the 10-year average of 1,250,000 fish.
Board votes to continue conservation measures for weak Southeast Alaska king salmon stocks
March 28, 2022 — Alaska’s Board of Fisheries this week voted to continue with conservation measures for chronically low returns of king salmon in Southeast Alaska. Some stocks are forecast to be at their lowest levels on record this year and others have rebounded a little under fishery closures.
The region has 34 stocks of king salmon and the board has listed seven as stocks of concern. That means for four years or more, those runs have not had enough fish making it back to spawn, or what managers call an escapement goal.
Ed Jones is an Alaska Department of Fish and Game coordinator specializing in king salmon research. He outlined to the board the measures taken to reduce harvest of those fish.
“Through the actions taken beginning in 2018 with the action plans, we have taken good steps towards achieving the escapement goals,” Jones said. “The problem is the production of these stocks has just continued to be low. And so right now we’ve not been able to provide a harvestable yield annually. The hopes are that that production will change, escapement goals will be met and we’ll also be able to identify yield.”
A court decision may help endangered orcas, but Alaskan fishermen are wary
November 8, 2021 — The southern resident killer whale population, three pods of orcas that ply the coastal waters between Monterey, California, and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, has dwindled to only 73 members. Scientists believe this endangered species, which relies almost exclusively on Chinook — or king — salmon, which are also in steep decline, is basically starving its way to extinction.
This past September, however, the U.S. District Court in Seattle seemed to offer the marine mammals a lifeline when it issued a preliminary decision that might make more Chinook available to orcas. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Wild Fish Conservancy, the court found that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for management of both fisheries and endangered marine species, had violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that commercial harvest of Chinook off southeast Alaska would not jeopardize southern residents or endangered king salmon populations.
But while the court decision is expected to help orcas, it may be bad news for fishermen, as NMFS will likely need to rethink Chinook harvests.
Read the full story at FERN News
ALASKA: Southeast commercial salmon harvest 4 times higher than last year
November 2, 2021 — Southeast Alaska’s salmon harvest was over four times more than last year’s, according to a preliminary report from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game released on Monday (November 1).
Commercial fishermen in Southeast harvested 58 million salmon across the five species this year: almost 7 million chum salmon, 48 million pinks, 1.5 million coho, 1.1 million sockeye, and 216,000 king salmon.
That’s a marked improvement in harvest for every species. Even the embattled Southeast king salmon had a commercial harvest increase of more than 16,000 fish. In total, commercial salmon fishermen in the region caught and sold 44 million more salmon than last year.
Trawl overhaul? Alaska fishermen go to bat for kings and crabs
October 8, 2021 — Animosity toward Alaska’s trawl fleet reached a fever pitch over the summer. In most parts of the state, where salmon fishing would have kept stakeholders busy, lackluster returns and some closures instead gave thousands of fishermen more time to mull over answers to where the fish may have gone.
Although Alaska’s overall salmon returns have been strong this year, the results are stratified. King salmon returns, specifically, have been in a long and steady decline. Statewide, king landings — by number of fish — have declined by more than 70 percent in the last 40 years, from a high of 875,630 fish in 1982 to 265,081 in 2020. The harvest so far for 2021 is about 212,000 fish.
When accounting for landings by weight, the reduction is almost 85 percent over the same period, from 16.9 million pounds in 1982 to 2.9 million in 2020, according to the Alaska Department of Fish & Game.
As council meetings went virtual during the pandemic-induced shutdowns, participation and feedback from local stakeholders increased significantly.
Read the full story at National Fisherman
Low King Salmon Runs In Western Alaska Trigger Bering Sea Bycatch Caps
September 29, 2021 — Unofficial estimates of this summer’s king salmon run in Western Alaska rivers show a lower than average return, which will trigger stricter limits on the Bering Sea pollock fishery’s bycatch caps for king salmon next year.
State biologists said that about 129,000 king salmon returned to the Kuskokwim River this year. Of those, the state estimates that about 28,000 were harvested, and 101,000 made their way upriver to spawn.
The state’s escapement goal of 65,000 to 120,000 kings was met, but federal and tribal managers’ escapement goal of 110,000 king salmon was not. This year’s king salmon run is slightly higher than last year’s estimated run size of 116,000 king salmon, but much lower than the 2019 run of 233,000.
NMFS approves plan to restrict salmon fishing, protect orcas
September 17, 2021 — King salmon fishing could be cut back from Puget Sound to Monterey Bay if king salmon numbers fall too low to feed the 75 endangered Southern Resident orcas, under a plan approved Sept. 14 by NMFS.
Non-tribal fishing would be restricted when king salmon numbers appear heading toward that threshold — a key recommendation from a working group convened by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, including representatives from West Coast states, tribes, and NMFS.
In late 2020 the council adopted the work group’s suggestions, including limiting commercial and recreational fishing in certain places off California, Oregon, and Washington when estimated king salmon numbers north of Cape Falcon, Oregon, fall below a certain level of abundance.
That level would be set as the average of the seven lowest years of forecast king salmon abundance off the northern Oregon and Washington coasts, currently estimated at 966,000. In recent years salmon numbers held above that level, and 2007 was the last year when forecasts would have fallen below the threshold.
Read the full story at National Fisherman
Amid an unprecedented collapse in Alaska Yukon River salmon, no one can say for certain why there are so few fish
September 7, 2021 — A single slick silver salmon lay flat in the center of a floating dock.
The lone coho was the only fish that turned up in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s test net that mid-August evening. A technician stooped low in her orange rubber gloves and sandals for measurements.
Test nets are one of the tools that fisheries managers use to understand what’s happening with the salmon runs on the Lower Yukon River. Any of the fish caught, once sampled, are given to local residents for food. In normal times, when big pulses of chum surge into the river, managers sometimes have 50 or a hundred fish at a time to donate. But this year, test nets sometimes went as long as three days without a single salmon. People stopped bothering to even check the bins set down the road from the AC store.
So it was a big deal that hours earlier during the morning run, the test nets yielded a catch.
“Word traveled fast that we got three fish,” said biologist Courtney Berry.
“Fishing for water all summer has been … boring,” Berry said.
The salmon situation this year on the Yukon is bad. Kings have been in decline for years, here and almost everywhere else in the state. This summer was the fourth lowest count of kings in the Yukon since 1995.
Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News
ALASKA: Yukon subsistence users go to new lengths for food after chums don’t return
August 20, 2021 — This has been the worst salmon fishing season on record for the Yukon River.
King salmon, a regional favorite, have returned in low numbers for years. But now a typically stable species, chum salmon, has also collapsed this year. Subsistence fishing on the lower Yukon River for both species is now closed. Residents, like Jason Lamont, who usually depend heavily on the fish are pivoting toward other ways to get protein.
“I started fishing on the Yukon when I was 6 years old,” said Lamont. “There was one point, me and my grandpa were coming down here for supplies and we had a summer chum jump into the boat. But those days are gone.”
Lamont is from Emmonak and lives off of subsistence food, which in past summers has meant salmon. His family doesn’t buy meat from the store: Salmon caught during the summer will help carry his family through the winter.
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