The Alaskan Department of Fish and Game has decided to close the Copper River fishery, which is faced with its second lowest commercial harvest in half a century, to sport fishing.
According to officials, only 155,000 sockeye salmon have swum past the department’s counter on the river from mid-May until last weekend, compared to 320,000 last year.
Art Nelson, a spokesperson for commercial fisheries at the department, hypothesized that unusually high ocean temperatures were to blame for the drop in salmon numbers.
“One of the theories is that there had been a number of years of unusually warm water in the North Pacific that was referred to as the blob, and that is one of the things that folks believe is leading to the poor productivity, poor feed for the salmon and then poor salmon productivity because of that,” Nelson said.
Next week, Alaskan Fish and Game officials will meet to determine how the low numbers will affect the rest of the commercial season.
Bert Lewis, a commercial fisheries biologist said that the department was monitoring the numbers of all species of salmon in all parts of the state, which have been low across the board.
“Southeast, the Chinook salmon are somewhat in a crisis mode down there with the lowest forecast we've ever had,” Lewis said. “And those numbers seem to be proving out… so Chinook across the state, we are concerned about.”
The start of the Copper River season was met with great fanfare, with sockeye fillets selling in the neighborhood of USD 50 (EUR 43.04) per pound, whereas king filets were selling near USD 70 (EUR 60.25) per pound at Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market. However, once the commercial season reopens, analysts predict the price of Copper River fish to rise given the news of the scarcity. If overall salmon harvest numbers remain low, prices for all species are expected to peak.
