Another Most Fascinating Story This Week? Possibly -- Crisis! Everything's A Crisis -- Now It's Alaska Salmon -- October 5, 2021

When I read this story, I immediately thought of the US lobster story. 

Headline: dwindling Alaska salmon leave Yukon River tribes in crisis. Link here. 

This is what caught my attention: some are blaming the disappearance of salmon on global warming, and yet there is no research or data to back up that claim. What is not discussed is the "over-fishing."

"Over-fishing" is mentioned but it's deep in the article, easily missed "... a state that supplies the world with salmon ..." "... it's increasingly clear that overfishing is not the only culprit."

A long, long article and absolutely no numbers -- how much salmon is actually harvested every year.

From another source:

Alaska ranks ninth among seafood-producing nations in the world. Forty-two percent of the world's harvest of wild salmon and 80 percent of the production of high-value wild salmon species such as sockeye, king, and coho salmon, come from Alaska waters.

From the linked article:

STEVENS VILLAGE, Alaska (AP) — In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them.

This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote communities that dot the river and live off its bounty — far from road systems and easy, affordable shopping — are desperate and doubling down on moose and caribou hunts in the waning days of fall.

“Nobody has fish in their freezer right now. Nobody,” said Giovanna Stevens, 38, a member of the Stevens Village tribe who grew up harvesting salmon at her family’s fish camp. “We have to fill that void quickly before winter gets here.”

The "chum" numbers plunged in one year. Climate change doesn't work that way. 

King, or chinook, salmon have been in decline for more than a decade, but chum salmon were more plentiful until last year. This year, summer chum numbers plummeted and numbers of fall chum — which travel farther upriver — are dangerously low.

... a state that supplies the world with salmon ...

 For a completely different view, see this article published July 28, 2021: after a difficult year (Covid-19 related), Alaska's salmon industry is back.

This year, optimism among those who are out fishing is bolstered by forecasts. 

Bristol Bay is home to the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon run. 

Prices are way up from last year and biologists believe they might see the largest run of Alaskan sockeye on record this summer. 

“We are expecting a big run,” said Travis Elison. He’s the Bristol Bay area management biologist for Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game. 

“We forecasted over 50 million fish for Bristol Bay total. We are seeing indications of a run that could be much larger than that. This one has the potential to be a record total run to Bristol Bay.” The number of fish caught this year has already surpassed 60 million. It’s all welcome news for fisherman Nathan Hill. He uses a 300-foot setnet that’s fixed to the beach to harvest sockeye out of Naknek. When the tide is in, it floats his net and dozens of salmon swim straight into it.

Time to get out the atlas:

• Stevens Village
• Yukon River
• Norton Sound
• Bristol Bay
• Bering Sea
• just to get started