Alaska State Representative Sarah Vance is calling on the state government to request a federal fishery disaster declaration following low salmon returns in Prince William Sound, Kodiak, Upper Cook Inlet, Lower Cook Inlet, South Peninsula, and Chignik.
“The unprecedented low return of pink salmon has left many fishermen without income, while others are burdened with significant debt from this disastrous season,” Vance said in a letter to Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy. “For those whose livelihoods depend on the salmon harvest, this is an economic crisis with profound and far-reaching impacts.”
Pink salmon returns were drastically lower in 2024. Canadian seafood trading firm Tradex reported that fishers caught only 35 percent of the forecasted total as of August, leading it to call 2024 “one of the worst seasons on record” for pink salmon.
“The current combined harvest for pinks from Alaska and Russia is over 80 percent lower than last year’s global total and 47 percent below the last even-year harvest,” Tradex President and CEO Robert Reierson said in a market update. “The general consensus from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is that, overall, this year’s pink salmon returns appear to be very poor and that there are not currently any indications that the returns are significantly late.”
Vance, a member of the legislature’s new Seafood Industry Task Force, said that she has spoken to Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang about a fishery disaster declaration request and was told the department would conduct a data analysis to better understand the causes of the low abundance of pink salmon in those areas.
“It is imperative that we do all that we can to support our small boat fishermen during these hard times of failing runs and an abysmal price per [pound] of our salmon in the domestic and foreign markets,” Vance said on social media.
In June, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued disaster determinations for Alaska’s 2022 Chignik salmon fishery and 2023 Upper Cook Inlet East Side Setnet salmon fishery. Later that month, the department awarded the state USD 12 million (EUR 11 million) for fishery disasters that took place in salmon fisheries 2021 and 2022.
