Hunting & Fishing

Hunting for Mulchatna caribou is closed on both state and federal lands. Game managers hope that the closure will help the herd grow after years of decline.

A fishing trawl survey in the Bering Sea appears to have documented some fish stock changes caused by the warming climate. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has been conducting trawl surveys of the northern Bering Sea since 2003. 

The low chum salmon run on the Yukon River last summer was foreshadowed by the low number of juvenile chums caught three years earlier in the Northern Bering Sea Trawl survey. That 2017 catch was the lowest since the trawl survey began early this century.  

Mushers on the Yukon River are struggling to feed their dogs because of weak king and chum salmon runs this year.

Organizations representing Yukon River communities are drafting a letter to Gov. Mike Dunleavy seeking a fishery disaster declaration for this summer’s salmon season.

It’s official. The Yukon River’s fall chum salmon run is shaping up to be the lowest run on record. 

The weak chum salmon run continues on the Yukon River, with managers closing subsistence harvest for salmon to reduce the impact on chum salmon. 

Salmon runs continue to be late and low this year. First the kings, then the chums; now the coho appear to be late coming up the Kuskokwim River. Usually Aug. 7 is the midpoint of the coho run, but this year it was not until the Aug. 8 weekend that numbers at the Bethel test fishery increased, and then only modestly. Managers now predict that the final catch will be below average. 

The king, chum, and sockeye runs are mostly over, and the catch per unit effort for all those species was below the 2008 through 2019 average.

The fishing has gone from bad to worse on the Yukon River. Fall chum numbers are so low that managers have closed subsistence fishing on the lower Yukon.