Alaska officials forecast improvements for the state’s commercial salmon harvest

After a poor showing last year, Alaska’s statewide commercial salmon harvest appears poised for a rebound, according to projections by state biologists.

This year’s total salmon harvest is expected to be more than twice as big as last year’s total, thanks primarily to stronger returns of pink salmon, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s annual statewide run forecast and commercial harvest projection. The report was released this week.

The department’s projected 2025 total harvest is 214.6 million fish, above the 2000-2023 average of 175 million fish, though well below the record 280 million salmon harvested commercially in 2013. This year’s projected total is much higher than the 103.5 million salmon harvested commercially last year.

If the harvest occurs as projected, it would be the 10th-largest on record, said Forrest Bowers, director of the department’s Division of Commercial Fisheries.

Key to the projection for this year is a much-improved outlook for pink salmon. This year’s harvest of pink salmon, also known as humpback salmon, is expected to exceed last year’s harvest by 98.2 million fish, according to the department.

Pink salmon are the most abundant and low-priced of all five Alaska salmon species. But last year’s harvest of about 40 million pink salmon was considered abysmal, even taking into account the normal pattern of weaker runs in even-numbered years.

The species has a two-year life cycle, the shortest of all Alaska salmon species, and odd-numbered years generally have bigger returns, a pattern that has become especially pronounced in about the last decade, Bowers said.

The department is also forecasting increases in other species: 10.8 million more sockeye, also known as red salmon; 544,000 more coho salmon, also known as silver salmon; and 876,000 more chum salmon.

But for Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, recent returns and harvests that have been anemic are expected to be even lower this year, according to the department’s forecast.

Last year, Alaska fishermen harvested 244,000 Chinook, according to the department. This year’s harvest is expected to be only 144,000 fish.

Because of poor returns, the state has had to “severely restrict” Chinook harvests in recent years, Bowers said. This year’s projected Chinook totals also reflect obligations under the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty, he said.

The treaty aims to ensure that enough salmon return to spawning grounds to provide adequate fish for harvesters in both countries, a goal that has proved elusive.

For now, there are limited opportunities in Alaska to fish for Chinook, outside of one “directed” fishery where it is the species that is intended to be harvested. 

“Southeast Alaska is the only place that we have a directed Chinook salmon fishery that’s open this year,” Bowers said. Any other Chinook harvesting is done incidentally, with those fish accidentally netted by harvesters targeting other species, he said.

Chinook notwithstanding, there is another way that this year’s commercial harvest is expected to be better than last year’s harvest: The fish will not be as small, biologists believe.

Pacific salmon have been shrinking in size for decades, a trend attributed to climate change, competition for food in the ocean and other conditions. Results of that trend were apparent last year. The average size of sockeye salmon from Bristol Bay, the dominant source of Alaska sockeye, was only 4.53 pounds, the smallest on record.

Measured by pounds, the total commercial harvest of Alaska salmon across all species was the third lowest on record, at about 450 million.

Last year’s slimmed-down average size of Alaska salmon was influenced by the mix of age classes in the Bristol Bay harvest, the state’s dominant source of sockeye salmon. Last year, about 80% of the returning fish were younger, having spent only two years in the ocean, according to the department.

But this year’s returning Bristol Bay salmon are expected to be older, with 63% of them coming back after three years in the ocean, Bowers said.

“As you can imagine, a 3-year ocean fish is going to be larger than a 2-year ocean fish because most of their growth occurs in the ocean,” he said “So if they have an additional year of growth in the ocean, you know, they’re going to be larger than fish that that have spent less time in the ocean.”

Beyond the well-studied Bristol Bay runs, most other salmon runs have either single age classes returning or much less detailed information about age-class distributions, Bowers said. That makes it difficult to predict fish sizes beyond those in the Bristol Bay runs, he said.

The department’s harvest projections are based on forecasts of run sizes compared to the needed levels of “escapement,” the term for fish that reach spawning grounds where they reproduce.  

Once escapement needs are subtracted from projected run sizes, the remaining sum is considered the “harvestable surplus,” which is what the department uses as projected harvest totals, Bowers said.

Whether fishers catch the harvestable surplus is unknown, he said.

Market conditions influence fishing efforts, the department’s annual statewide forecast notes. Therefore, the numbers calculated “may not be indicative of actual harvests,” it said.