But over the last few years, the numbers have been so poor that all have been closed, including subsistence fisheries, said Katie Howard, lead scientist for the department’s Salmon Ocean Ecology Program. Under state law, Alaska’s subsistence fisheries along the Kuskokwim and Yukon Rivers are prioritized over commercial and sport fisheries when salmon stocks are low. It is these upriver salmon that sustain subsistence fishers like Hoffman. This means fewer salmon make their way back up the river to spawn each year. In the Bering Sea, these salmon are not only susceptible to warming temperatures but risk being swept up as bycatch by commercial fishing trawlers and then treated as waste. Salmon can live in the ocean for one to five years before they make their way back up the river to spawn, then die. It hatches in freshwater and matures for one year before migrating to the sea. Research carried out by Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game attributes the decline to a multitude of factors, especially rising temperatures in the Bering Sea, to which salmon are especially vulnerable.Ī salmon’s journey in southwest Alaska begins at birth in an upriver spawning ground. Over the last two decades, the number of salmon in the river has fallen sharply, particularly the Chinook (king) and chum varieties. “We try to fish as much salmon as we can, but it will be very hard this summer.” With a population of just over 6,000 and no access by roads, residents rely heavily on the river for food and transport.ĭifferent times of the year bring various species, but “salmon is the most important fish to our people,” she said. Hoffman lives in Bethel, a small and isolated town in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region of southwest Alaska. Now 71 years old, she says its fish have nourished her for most of her life-particularly the salmon, which is woven into family routines and tribal traditions. Beverly Hoffman grew up on the Kuskokwim River, a storied 700-mile waterway that flows from the Alaska Range to the Bering Sea.
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