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The US Forest Service says the most valuable product on the Tongass National Forest is now salmon.

Ron Medel is the Fisheries Program Manager for the Tongass. He gave a statistics-packed presentation to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday (5-6-15). His task over the last several years has been to figure out how much Alaskan salmon is produced in the forest.

I won't keep you waiting in suspense. According to Medel, the Tongass produces 25-percent of all salmon swimming in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean.

Although Medel generated detailed charts and graphs showing the value of fish landed around the state, the breakdown of species that are being caught, and their relative values, this was the number that landed: 25-percent of all salmon in this part of the world are wild stocks produced in the thousands of streams and rivers of Southeast Alaska.

He's been studying this question since 2010.

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