Salmon numbers still struggling across Alaska

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Low numbers of salmon continue to frustrate those who rely on some of the state’s largest fisheries.

The Bristol Bay area has been somewhat of a mixed bag, as sockeye salmon numbers are doing well but king salmon numbers remain well below escapement goals.

Tim Sands, west side of Bristol Bay area management biologist, said making sure everyone gets their fair share isn’t easy.

“When you have these conflicting goals of harvesting sockeye and trying to manage for king salmon escapement, it gets really complex,” Sands said.

According to Sands, in 2018 there was an escapement of over 97,000 chinook salmon — and fish spawned in that year’s run are due to return this year. But only 27,761 chinook salmon have crossed escapement goals as of Wednesday.

Sands said there are many theories to their absence — likely related to the ocean itself, as there are chinook shortages coastwide.

Further west, a similar situation is occurring in the Kuskokwim River area, where around 142,000 king salmon were expected — but with current trends, the run is expected to be below even that number.

Sean Larson, an ADF&G Kuskokwim area research biologist, says the numbers there are below average. Larson further said chum salmon are doing much better than in recent years in the Kuskokwim region, but that their numbers are also well below average.

A similar situation is occurring on the Yukon, where for the first time in years, communities on the headwaters are able to subsistence fish for chum salmon. However, the same cannot be said for communities further upriver.

“For the last three years, we haven’t got to fish at all and so it’s very … it hurts. Our culture really depends on king salmon and chum,” Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission chair Karma Ulvi said.

Ulvi says communities further up the Yukon have turned to caribou for subsistence in the absence of strong salmon runs, but that their numbers are declining as well. Many families have also been purchasing food from Fairbanks and sending it as freight, which she says costs around 70 cents per pound.

“There are a few things that we are able to stop — and that human interaction like commercial fishing and bycatch, those are things that we can actually make a difference,” Ulvi said.

Down south, the president of the Area M Seiners Association Kiley Thompson said commercial fishermen in the area voluntarily took time off during the June fishery to avoid Western Alaskan chum salmon.

Matt Keyse, the South Alaska Peninsula salmon and herring area management biologist for commercial fisheries, said the sockeye harvest by the end of June was well below the past 10 year average of 1.6 million fish — down to just under 900,000 — and that chum numbers were down from around 500,000 to 200,000 on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula.

Speaking by phone, Thompson said his commercial fishing boat was headed back to port due to a combination of a lack of fish and a lower market price for salmon.

“It’s hard to make ends meet. Just paying for the fuel alone is a hard, hard challenge as low as the prices are,” Thompson said.

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