Featured SalmonState Column

A Tale of Two Salmon
Mary Catharine Martin Mary Catharine Martin

A Tale of Two Salmon

Bristol Bay’s sockeye run began breaking records in 2018. The same year, Chignik, which is on the other side of the Alaska Peninsula, failed to meet its minimum escapements for the first time in recent memory. Now, Chignik’s residents and fishermen are working to address and bring attention to these unprecedented declines, and to save their way of life.

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Why are Alaska’s salmon shrinking?
Mary Catharine Martin Mary Catharine Martin

Why are Alaska’s salmon shrinking?

Alaskans who have fished for salmon consistently over the years know it: Alaska’s salmon, especially king salmon, are getting smaller. Now, a new study, published August 19 in the journal Nature Communications by lead author Krista Oke, a postdoctoral fellow with the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks; senior author Eric Palkovacs, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz; and an international team of co-authors, many of them also based in Alaska, delves into why that is — and what it means.

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Connecting people to salmon during COVID-19
Mary Catharine Martin Mary Catharine Martin

Connecting people to salmon during COVID-19

Some fast food restaurants in the Lower 48 have stopped serving hamburgers. Meatpacking plants have shut down. Grocery stores are frequently sold out of flour and rice. But Americans can buy Alaskan seafood directly from the fishermen who caught it — and, in increasing numbers, that’s what they’re doing.

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Casting for fish, and guides, in Bristol Bay
Mary Catharine Martin Mary Catharine Martin

Casting for fish, and guides, in Bristol Bay

Triston Chaney, a 19-year-old college student raised in Dillingham, knew before this year that he loved fly fishing. What he didn’t know is that he’d love helping other people catch fish, too.

With the help of the Bristol Bay Fly Fishing & Guide Academy, he’ll soon start a job doing just that.

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