Biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game say that in the wake of a record harvest of 94 million pink salmon in Southeast Alaska commercial fisheries this year, the coming year’s harvest will more likely be an average 22 million fish.
That would be well below the recent 10-year average of 41 million pink salmon, but close to the average harvest over the past five even years.
The 2014 harvest forecast was produced in two steps: a forecast of the trend in harvest and a forecast trend adjusted using 2013 juvenile pink salmon abundance data provided by federal fisheries biologists.
A discussion by state fisheries biologists of the forecast methods and plan for the 2014 season is on the agenda for the Southeast Alaska Purse Seine Task Force meeting Dec. 3 in Ketchikan. State biologists said the primary reason to expect that the harvest in 2014 will be below the recent 10-year average is that biological escapement goals were met in only two of three sub-regions in the 2012 parent year. Overall, management targets for pink salmon were not met in five of 15 districts, and, at a finer scale, 15 of 46 pink salmon stock groups, they said.
Staff from the NOAA Auke Bay Laboratories also will be at this meeting to present their 2014 pink salmon harvest forecast for Southeast Alaska. More information on how NOAA forecasts pink salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska is online at http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/ABL/MSI/msi_sae_psf.htm.
That would be well below the recent 10-year average of 41 million pink salmon, but close to the average harvest over the past five even years.
The 2014 harvest forecast was produced in two steps: a forecast of the trend in harvest and a forecast trend adjusted using 2013 juvenile pink salmon abundance data provided by federal fisheries biologists.
A discussion by state fisheries biologists of the forecast methods and plan for the 2014 season is on the agenda for the Southeast Alaska Purse Seine Task Force meeting Dec. 3 in Ketchikan. State biologists said the primary reason to expect that the harvest in 2014 will be below the recent 10-year average is that biological escapement goals were met in only two of three sub-regions in the 2012 parent year. Overall, management targets for pink salmon were not met in five of 15 districts, and, at a finer scale, 15 of 46 pink salmon stock groups, they said.
Staff from the NOAA Auke Bay Laboratories also will be at this meeting to present their 2014 pink salmon harvest forecast for Southeast Alaska. More information on how NOAA forecasts pink salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska is online at http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/ABL/MSI/msi_sae_psf.htm.