With annual returns of prized Chinook salmon to Alaska’s fabled Copper River creeping steadily downward, the state Board of Fisheries is meeting in Valdez to consider reducing the spawning goal for the […]
Up is down
A Chinook victory
A complicated and sometimes contentious Copper River salmon season is coming to an end with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game seemingly in position to declare mission accomplished. State fishery managers […]
Suffering Little Su
Update: This story has been updated and extensively rewrwitten to reflect the Little Susitna finally made escapement and to include information from a state genetics study of Chinook from Northern Cook […]
State of the kings
For the first time in years, king salmon are showing signs of making a stronger return to the vast wilderness surrounding Alaska’s urban heartland. While Panhandle runs continue to struggle, kings to […]
So many kings
With the commercial catch of king salmon off the mouth of the Copper River steadily growing, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has gone all in on the idea that a […]
Good bad news?
The Copper River commercial salmon fishery ended Tuesday almost 2,000 Chinook over the 5,000-salmon threshold the Alaska Department of Fish and Game set as the acceptable harvest for 2017, and the fishing […]
Fishermen trouble
The 68-year-old president of the United Fishermen of Alaska – one of the 49th state’s most powerful lobbies – and three other commercial fishermen have been cited in Cordova for failing to […]
King fishery closed
Fisheries managers in Southcentral Alaska might still be wrestling with what to do about a weak return of king salmon to the Copper River, but their counterparts in Southeast Alaska have acted […]
A bigger king run?
UPDATED, 5/25/2017: Director of Commercial Fisheries addresses state’s comfort level that the king run is larger than forecast. After predicting the worst king salmon run to the Copper River since 1985 […]
Yes or no, fish or go
News analysis Fisheries biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are today wrestling with a major dilemma. Months ago, long-time Cordova biologist Steve Moffitt forecast a frighteningly low […]
