Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Wild Salmon Catch in Alaska Reaches 262 Million Fish


Seafood processors in Alaska have now received from harvesters more than 262 million salmon of all species, including nearly 211 million pink salmon, topping the record of 221.9 million fish in 2005, including 161 humpies.

As of Sept. 4, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s 2013 preliminary Alaska commercial salmon harvest blue sheet showed a catch of 262,144,000 salmon of all species. That included 210,980,000 humpies, 29,382,000 sockeye, 17,631,000 chum, 3,846,000 silver and 304,000 king salmon.

For pink salmon alone, Prince William Sound, led with a harvest of 87,843,000 humpies, plus 3,455,000 chum, 2,280,000 sockeye, 289,000 silver and 10,000 kings, for a total of 93,878,000 fish.

In Southeast Alaska, fishermen have to date caught 84,579,000 humpies, plus nearly 10 million chum, 2,379,000 coho, 866,000 red and 224,000 Chinook, for an overall harvest of 97,957,000 fish.

Kodiak’s harvesters have delivered 31,536,000 salmon, including 28,042,000 pink, 2,476,000 sockeye, 805,000 chum, 180,000 coho and 34,000 kings, and processors of Alaska Peninsula salmon have received 12,042,000 fish, including 7,765,000 pink, 2,903,000 red, 1,071,000 chum, 296,000 silver and 7,000 Chinooks.

Bristol Bay region’s harvest reached 16.6 million fish, the vast majority of them sockeye, while in Cook Inlet, 2,724,000 reds and 1,873,000 humpies comprised the bulk of the harvest of more than 5 million fish.

In the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region, the harvest to date totals 1.6 million fish, the bulk of them chum salmon, including some 705,000 from the Yukon River, 295,000 from Kotzebue, 122,000 from the Kuskokwim, and 117,000 from Norton Sound fishermen.

Preliminary harvest reports are updated daily by state fisheries biologists at http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=commercialbyfisherysalmon.bluesheet