Alaska’s total salmon catch for 2020 is projected to be down 36 percent from last year’s haul of 207 million fish, the eighth largest on record that was valued at nearly $658 million at the docks.
In the run forecasts and harvest projections and review of the 2019 season just released by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, managers are calling for a harvest of just under 133 million salmon across Alaska. The decline is driven by a much lower forecast for those hard to predict pink salmon of just over 60 million fish, down nearly 53 percent.
All eyes will be on market reactions to the first fresh fish of the year in mid-May, when sockeyes and kings return to the Copper River near Cordova, regarded as the official start of Alaska’s salmon season. The famous fish typically commands the highest prices of the year at high end restaurants and markets, but there’s little confidence in strong salmon sales amid the COVID chaos.
At Upper Cook Inlet a run of about 4.3 million sockeye salmon is projected with a commercial harvest of 1.8 million fish. (In 2019, the UCI sockeye catch of 1.7 million was 1.3 million fewer fish than the preseason forecast of three million fish.)
Southeast Alaska’s pink salmon harvest projection calls for a dismal12 million fish, down from last season’s low of just over 21 million.
Like many recent years, a potential source of uncertainty regarding the 2020 pink salmon return is the anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska in 2019, the ADF&G report said. Pink salmon that went to sea from 2014 to 2018 returned in numbers below expectation and below recent odd- and even-year averages.
The impact of warm sea surface temperatures on the survival of pink salmon that went to sea in 2019 is unknown and adds uncertainty to the forecast.
Kodiak also is calling for a low pink harvest at around 12 million compared to 33 million humpies in 2019. Mediocre fishing seasons also are projected for pinks and sockeyes at the Alaska Peninsula.
Giving voice to Alaska’s fishermen during the COVID crisis is the goal of a new survey that targets both challenges and opportunities. The results will be shared with local, state and federal policy makers.
We think it’s important to hear directly from fishermen, all the small businesses around the state, so we can put this information together and provide it to lawmakers and decision makers to help them make better and more informed decisions with input from the fleet, said Tyson Fick, a Juneau-based fisherman and communications adviser for the group SalmonState, the survey sponsor.
If we’ve learned anything during this COVID crisis, Fick said, we look at who’s essential and often we’re not talking about a spokesman for any particular group, we’re talking about the people who actually do the work and move the fish and move the boxes around.
The short, mostly multiple-choice survey asks fishermen their primary business concerns and what strategies they will use to reduce COVID impacts, how emergency funds can best be applied for Alaska fishermen, and how policy makers from local levels to Congress can assist.
2019 The Cordova Times and Native Village of Eyak. All rights reserved.