Are North Pacific Salmon Facing ‘Tipping Point’ Decline?

Seattle-based scientist Dr. Greg Ruggerone has tirelessly studied the habits of North Pacific salmon – we featured his work researching the excessive numbers of North Pacific pink salmon and the impact on other salmon species in 2018. In 2021, Ruggerone was part of a study that analyzed warming ocean waters and the effects of that on pinks and other salmon species.

Here’s more on the study from News Data that updated some of Ruggerone’s and colleagues’ findings:

In 2020, harvests of Chinook salmon declined by 54 percent; chum salmon by 42 percent; pink salmon by 40 percent; coho salmon by 27 percent; and sockeye salmon by 10 percent, relative to the previous 10 years. In 2021, Chinook salmon declined by 33 percent; chum salmon by 38 percent; and coho salmon by 25 percent.

The picture for sockeye salmon is even bleaker if commercial harvests from Bristol Bay are not included. Ruggerone said excluding them makes sense, because favorable ocean conditions in the southeastern Bering Sea have offset competition with pink salmon in offshore waters, and because few pink salmon originate in Bristol Bay. Without them, the commercial harvest of sockeye salmon declined by 44 percent in 2020 and by 27 percent in 2021.

Meanwhile, in 2021, more pink salmon were harvested from the North Pacific Ocean than ever before, since record keeping began in 1925. About 515 million pink salmon were caught, primarily in Russia and Alaska, Ruggerone noted.