The great hatchery promise With Alaska on track to post its worst salmon harvest since 1979, it’s time to revisit the promise made to the state’s once taxpaying voters when they ponied […]
No Salvation
Dark politics
Fairy tales and blindness The great dream of ranked-choice voting in Alaska was that voters wouldn’t “need to worry about ‘spoilers,’ or feel forced to vote for the lesser of two evils.” […]
The ocean giveth
And the ocean taketh away The 2026 commercial salmon season in Alaska is not yet over, but it can already be called a full-on disaster in Prince William Sound, the heartland of […]
Nature’s whims
Alaska hatchery salmon gone missing The grand vision of an Alaska commercial salmon fishing industry stabilized by the hand of man producing fish in hatcheries and sending them to graze the sea […]
Winners & losers
Yukon king salmon rebound beginning? After a couple of years with cooler waters in the Bering Sea, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is reporting a Yukon River return of Chinook […]
China wins
The global humpy leader Scientists can argue about the ecological consequences of Alaska salmon hatcheries helping to flood the North Pacific Ocean with pink salmon, but what appears clear now is that […]
Humpies invade
The all-conquering pink salmon While Alaska fisheries biologists have been fretting about whether pink salmon straying from the state’s ocean-farming ranches could damage the genetics of wild, 49th-state pinks, the feral progeny […]
Russia wins
Competition for cheap protein Russia looks to have once again beaten Alaska in the annual battle to produce the maximum volume of the lowest-value salmon in the Pacific Ocean, and this despite […]
Journalism’s failure
The knowledge gap Many in these unUnited States today believe the big problem with American journalism is political bias, and that is a problem. But the even bigger problem is laziness, ignorance […]
Sockeye boom
Big question is why After years of mainly sitting on Cook Inlet beaches, commercial setnet salmon fishermen were back on the water this week as returning sockeye offered a lesson in how […]
