VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 1 | MARCH 2026 ALASKA SALMON RUN DECLINES ARE A CRISIS COMMENTARY
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W HILE SOME ALASKA SALMON RUNS REMAIN STRONG, SHARP DECLINES IN OTHERS ARE CAUSING A CRISIS FOR NUMEROUS WESTERN ALASKA COMMUNITIES. Chum salmon run declines will be under the microscope during this year’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting, and were discussed in a recent Alaska Beacon commentary. Open debate of how our region’s fisher- ies are impacting salmon populations is essential, but we need to take a closer look at the causes of abundance declines. The science is clear that environmen- tal changes, not fisheries, are the overrid- ing cause. Western Alaska chum salmon runs were healthy as recently as 2017, when almost 6 million chum returned to the Yukon River alone. By that year, the Bering Sea trawl fisheries that are now being vilified by out-of-state environ- mental activists had been operating at their current scale for 50 years. Their impacts were carefully monitored and managed, and salmon bycatch avoidance techniques were heralded as a global gold standard. Then two major heat- waves arrived. From 2014 to 2016 the Gulf of Alaska was hit by the longest and most intense marine heatwave on record. Then in 2019, a second massive warming event occurred in both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Scientists tell us that this warming shifted the zooplankton pop- ulation, depriving salmon of nutritious foods like copepods and forcing them to eat the marine equivalent of junk food. This robbed young chum of energy reserves and sharply reduced survival rates. It also led to steep abundance de- clines for coho salmon — a species that trawl fisheries never encounter.
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Any increase in chum salmon returns to Western Alaska from eliminating the pollock fishery would be undetectable. Every fishery has an environmen- tal impact. The Alaska pollock fleet is committed to continuous improve- ment, through things like collaborative research with state institutions and gear innovation, all to further reduce its very small impacts on Western Alaska chum salmon in response to the current crisis. As we do so, we are seeking to refine when and where we fish to specifically avoid Western Alaska chum salmon rather than Asian hatchery chum.
In the face of the crisis these envi- ronmental changes have caused, all of us need to respond. Yes, our region’s fisher- ies do catch Western Alaska salmon, and their management needs to be respon- sive. But here’s the truth: Alaska pollock trawl fishing accounts for only a tiny fraction of Western Alaska chum salmon fishing mortality. A recent scientific analysis concluded that state commer- cial salmon fisheries have accounted for 89.44% of Western Alaska chum salmon fishing mortality on average from 2011 to 2022. That is compared to an average of 8.81% by subsistence fisheries and an average of 1.75% by the Bering Sea Alaska pollock fishery in that same time.
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ALASKA RESOURCE REVIEW MARCH 2026
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