KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) - Officials have reduced the estimate for Southeast Alaska’s pink salmon harvest by almost 30 million fish as the summer fishery wraps up its season.
Monday’s purse seine opening will likely be the last of the summer, according to the Ketchikan Daily News (https://bit.ly/1X4jRLO).
Alaska Department of Fish and Game Ketchikan area management biologist Scott Walker said pink salmon catches in Southeast Alaska are just more than 28 million fish this year, about half of what the state projected for 2015.
“We maybe will make 29 million,” Walker said, “and with all of the gillnet catch and what little troll catch (we have), it will be somewhere around 30 million.”
District 4 - open water and the west coast of Prince of Wales Island - saw higher returns, but inside waters did not fare well this season.
Walker said the poor season will not lead to any management decisions from Fish and Game, but will likely lead to more cautious monitoring.
“It certainly raises questions, and we’ll be watching it,” he said, adding Fish and Game doesn’t “have any preconceived plan to do something different.”
___
Information from: Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News, https://www.ketchikandailynews.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.