The latest weekly harvest report for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Association prepared by McDowell Group in Juneau, Alaska, notes that the state’s year-to-date harvest of some 105 million salmon is nearly identical to 2016 and generally below expectation.
The report was prepared by research analyst Garrett Evridge, a key member for the Seafood Market Information Service, conducted by McDowell on behalf of ASMI.
Evridge notes that pink salmon harvests to date are about four percent above the 2016 pace but remain slow compared to historical even-year harvests, with Southeast Alaska at 67 percent below the typical even-year numbers. The year-to-date keta volume is about a third lower than last year and 10 percent below the five-year average, while production in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (AYK) region continues to exceed expectations. Through August 28, the AYK region harvested 2.1 million fish, including 1.8 million chum, 297,000 coho, 76,000 pink, 3,000 sockeye and 1,000 kings. Of that total 727,000 chum came from the Lower Yukon River, 659,000 from the Kotzebue area and 231,000 from Norton Sound.
Evridge’s report also indicates that about 2.3 million silver salmon have been harvested statewide this year, roughly a quarter below the five-year average, and that relatively strong Chinook fishing over the past two weeks has pushed the year-to-date total of kings to near the 2017 level.
At Kodiak, the sockeye harvest last week totaled about 340,000 fish, the highest weekly harvest this year for that region.
