Alaska’s Commercial Salmon Fishing Had A Challenging Year

From the Alaska Beacon, it was a rough year for Alaska’s commercial salmon harvest. Here are some details:

Only 101.2 million salmon were harvested this year, less than half the 232.2 million harvested last year, the department reported. The money paid to fishers for their catches, known as ex-vessel value, totaled $304 million, down from $398 million last year, the department said,

The poor results from this year’s salmon harvests are part of a multitude of troubles in Alaska’s seafood industry, a key economic sector in the state.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Forrest Bowers, acting director of the department’s Division of Commercial Fisheries.

In some ways, a low total harvest was expected, Bowers said.

As the story states, the pink salmon’s even-year runs added to the lower-than-hoped-for number of salmon caught and the value of the harvest.