The latest Western Alaska salmon crash came as a huge surprise to biologists and fishermen.
The forecast for Kotzebue Sound's commercial salmon season was initially optimistic. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimated up to 300,000 chum salmon could be harvested.
But the numbers in practice told a different story.
At what normally would have been the peak of the season, local fishermen were pulling in nets with just a handful of fish at most. Fishermen and state biologists came to the same conclusion — the salmon just weren't coming in.
Kevin Clark manages the Arctic Region for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
"This kind of caught us off guard as being as bad as it was," Clark said. "We weren't expecting it to be this bad this season."
Just over 5,000 salmon have been harvested, according to state data. That's only 2% of what Clark's department anticipated, with the season now over. Fish and Game called the season "below expectations and poor" in a press release.
In total there were only 19 openers across the same number of days, about a third as long as the season usually runs.
Clark said there's no "smoking gun" to point to, but late-season ice could have contributed to the dismal runs, and most of Western Alaska experienced later-than-normal salmon runs this year. Clark compared Kotzebue Sound's chum to stocks on the Yukon River that have been experiencing a severe decline since a major crash in 2020, but he can't definitively say they're related.
"They could be tied together in the ocean somehow," Clark said. "But there's no data to suggest how that happens, or if that actually happens. That's pure speculation."
Karen Gillis is Kotzebue's plant manager for Copper River Seafoods, the fishery's main buyer. She said this was the worst season she's seen in her 40 years in the industry.
"All the fishermen that I talked to just kind of shook their heads in basically wonder, because they had no explanation for the reason that there was no fish," Gillis said. "It's disturbing, disappointing and extremely sad."
The crash hurts Kotzebue commercial fishermen too. Gillis said it's the sole source of income for some local fishermen.
Many subsistence harvesters say they're also pulling in empty nets and missing a staple food source they rely on. That, too, can trickle down, affecting both the regional cash and subsistence economies.
"Most of the folks in Kotzebue know the importance of the fisheries … the fisherman doesn't catch fish, his family doesn't eat," Gillis said. "So, if it's a bad fishing season, it shows everywhere."
Commercial fisheries that experience sudden or unexpected losses may receive federal disaster relief. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Kotzebue Sound has not received a disaster determination since the program was created as part of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1976.
Even getting disaster relief can be a long process, starting with a public request to the governor followed by evaluations from several state and federal agencies. For example, statewide salmon disaster declarations in 2020 took more than three years from when requests were made until the relief money was awarded.
A Fish and Game representative said the state and NOAA have been working to streamline the process. But it could still be years before Kotzebue Sound fishermen receive any relief, if the season is determined to be a disaster.
