Feisty at the end of the rod and light and mellow at the center of the plate, silver or coho salmon have always been a symbol of the end of summer in Alaska. But, in the last several years, as tourism has wound down and the leaves have started to change around Cook Inlet, the silvers have failed to show up in the numbers people are used to. Fishermen and scientists are starting to worry.
“One year’s poor return doesn’t tend to really send up red flags, but year after year after year, then you start to get concerned as a manager,” said Matt Miller, Alaska Department of Fish and Game fisheries management coordinator for Cook Inlet.
This has not been a great fishing year overall. Commercial harvests for all five species of Alaska salmon statewide were down, according to the McKinley Research Group, which called the across-the-board poor harvest “atypical.” The Cook Inlet region saw the largest coho decline, at 84% below the harvest the year before, which was also poor. The inlet also saw a similarly significant decline in pink salmon harvest, the research group reported.
Last year, according to Fish and Game salmon landings data, the commercial harvest of coho in Cook Inlet was the smallest — just over 80,000 fish — since the department started keeping track in 1985, a highly abundant year when fishermen brought in 670,000 fish.