After a historically slow start to Southeast Alaska’s pink salmon season, catches are beginning to improve as fish finally show up along the outer coast.
According to an Aug. 7 report from KCAW, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) biologists say this year’s pink salmon run is arriving unusually late, raising concerns after commercial harvests fell to levels not seen in decades.
“It’s definitely late,” Andrew Piston, Southeast Alaska salmon research supervisor for ADF&G, told KCAW. “It was getting late enough in the year that I was starting to get pretty worried.”
State biologists entered the season forecasting a Southeast Alaska commercial harvest of about 19 million pink salmon. But as the season progressed with few fish returning, managers limited commercial openings for both seine and gillnet fleets.
Piston said the harvest through the previous week was among the lowest recorded since the 1960s. That outlook began to change in early August when pink salmon catches increased significantly in several areas along the outer coast.
Biologists also noticed that males made up a larger share of the arriving fish. Because male pink salmon typically return ahead of females, Piston said the composition of the catch could indicate that more fish are still on the way.
“We saw catches improve dramatically in a lot of areas,” Piston said. “So hopefully, this turnaround will keep going for a few weeks, and we’ll end up, you know, getting reasonably close to our preseason forecast.”
The late arrival is particularly important for Southeast Alaska’s commercial fishing industry. The region’s commercial pink salmon harvest has averaged about $27 million annually over the past decade.
Pink salmon follow a two-year life cycle, and Southeast Alaska's even-year runs, including 2026, are typically weaker than odd-year returns. Still, the exceptionally slow start had raised concerns about just how far this year's harvest could fall below expectations.
With catches now improving, fishermen and managers will be watching the coming weeks to see whether the late surge is enough to bring the season closer to the state's 19 million-fish preseason forecast.
