As of early last week, more than 42 million salmon (41.5 million of which are sockeye) have been harvested in Bristol Bay this season, as anglers aim to break the all-time harvest record of 44.2 million sockeye, harvested in 1995.
The figure, provided by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, had already overtaken last year’s count of more than 41.3 million sockeye, which is the second largest harvest on record.
The Nushagak River District accounts for a harvest of 14.7 million sockeye salmon, and is followed by a harvest 14.5 million sockeye in the Egegik.
Bristol Bay Area Management Biologist Tim Sands told the Anchorage Daily News that he believed that fishermen’s gear selection has played a role in the record-breaking numbers this year.
“The last two years we’ve had these really tremendous runs of two-ocean fish here in the Nushagak,” Sands said. “People probably saw fish going through their gear. I think there’s definitely been some learning going on.”
Though Bristol Bay is set to break records, other areas in Alaska such as the Southeast, where slightly more than one million chum salmon have been harvested (though 20.6 million were expected), have had significantly smaller harvests than predicted.
Abnormally warm weather in Alaska has led to higher water temperatures, which can be a cause for concern. Anglers have spotted dead salmon floating in rivers in Norton Sound, in the Kuskokwim River. On the Igushik River in the Nushagak District of Bristol Bay, warm water appeared to be stopping salmon from swimming upstream.
“The Igushik River itself is kind of an interesting river,” Sands said. “It’s really slow, a lot of tide and not a lot of flow. It’s more like a really long pond. Because of that, it’s much more susceptible to heating up. The warmer the water is, the less oxygen can dissolve in it. There’s a bunch of fish in the river holding, there’s less oxygen available.”
A total of 86 million salmon have been harvested statewide this season.
Image courtesy of Max Lindenthaler/Shutterstock
