Alaska Salmon Catch Exceeds 75 Million Fish

Alaska’s wild salmon catch now exceeds 75 million fish, up from some 48 million salmon caught commercially through last week.

The latest preliminary harvest figures compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) break down the catch to date to 43.5 million sockeyes, 18.7 million pinks, 12.2 million chums, 506,000 cohos and 221,000 Chinook salmon.

Of that total more than 35 million fish have come from Bristol Bay, including 34 million red salmon. The Nushagak District had the highest harvest boastingmore than 11.3 million salmon, followed closely by the Egegik district with 10.5 million and the Ugashik district at 4.6 million salmon.

The Cook Inlet fisheries have delivered 1.7 million salmon to processors, including 1.4 million sockeyes, 152,000 chums, 132,000 pinks, 11, 000 cohos and 5,000 kings, while in Prince William Sound the commercial catch of 17.5 million salmon broke down to over 12 million humpies, 4.3 million chums, over one thousand red and 13,000 king salmon.

On the Lower Yukon River, the catch of oil rich keta salmon was at 441,000 fish, with another 127,000 chums brought in from the Upper Yukon River.

In Southeast Alaska, commercial harvesters have delivered nearly 4 million fish, including 3.8 million chums, nearly 3 million pinks, 419,000 cohos, 179,000 reds and 153,000 kings.

Processors in Alaska’s Western region have receive an estimated 12.3 million fish, of which 6.8 million were reds, 3.4 million were humpies and 1.9 million were chum salmon.