Wild Salmon Harvest for Alaska Tops 136 Million Fish

In just one week, Alaska’s preliminary commercial salmon harvest count has jumped from 125 million to more than 136 million fish.

As of August 20, that catch of 136,589,000 salmon of all species included 82,428,000 humpies, 42,144,000 sockeyes, 9,013,000 chum, 2,577,000 silver and 428,000 kings.

That compares with the final tally for the 2013 commercial salmon season in Alaska of 272,630,000 fish, including the record 219,160,000 pink salmon catch.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, in a move to promote sales of the abundance of pink salmon, has produced a new online e-cookbook promoting canned Alaska salmon in recipes ranging from salads and tacos to quesadillas. Find it at www.wildlaskaflavor.com/ecookbooks/

The largest increase came in the Southeast Alaska region, where harvesters have now delivered to processors an estimated 37,133,000 fish. That total includes 28,982,000 pink, 4,955,000 chum, 1,619,000 coho, 1,203,000 sockeyes and 374,000 Chinook salmon.

Elsewhere the overall increase is harvest continued at a less dramatic pace.

Prince William Sound processors have received 46,402,000 fish, a catch that includes 41,890,000, plus 3,309,000 red, 1,154,000 chum, 37,000 silver and 10,000 king salmon. There were no reports of an increase in harvest for Bristol Bay, which ended the season with 29,393,000 fish, including 28,809,000 sockeyes, but the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region boosted its harvest total slightly, to 1,845,000 salmon, including 1,298,000 chum, 234,000 pink, 229,000 silver, 81,000 red and 3,000 Chinooks.

In Cook Inlet the harvest overall rose to 3,663,000 fish. Processors received 2,508,000 red, 852,000 pink, 176,000 chum, 122,000 silver, and 5,000 kings since the season began.

For the Alaska Peninsula, harvests have reached 4,756,000 salmon, the bulk of them - 3,155,000 fish – are sockeyes, but the mix also includes 693,000 pink, 606,000 chum, 293,000 coho and 8,000 kings.

At Kodiak, deliveries to processors through Aug. 20 came to 12,275,000 salmon, including 9,320,000 pink, 2,482,000 red, 321,000 chum, 144,000 silver and 7,000 Chinooks.