The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announces publication of the annual statewide salmon run forecast and commercial harvest projection report – Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2022 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2021 Season.
The Alaska all-species salmon harvest for 2021 totaled nearly 235 million fish. Over half of this harvest was composed of pink salmon (161.4 million fish), followed by sockeye salmon (57.1 million fish). Most of the 2021 pink salmon harvest occurred in the Central and Western regions, and Bristol Bay continued to be the largest sockeye salmon producing region in Alaska.
According to the report, the 2021 Upper Cook Inlet Area sockeye salmon estimated total run of 5.7 million fish was 1.3 million fish larger than the preseason forecast of 4.4 million fish. The commercial salmon fishery harvest of 1.7 million salmon was the third lowest harvest since 1975 and 42% lower than the recent 10-year average harvest of 2.9 million fish. Harvest was composed of approximately 4,000 Chinook, 1.4 million sockeye, 148,000 Coho, 81,000 pink, and 70,000 Chum salmon.
The forecasts of the 2022 UCI sockeye salmon run and harvests show an estimated total run of 4.97 million fish. Based on the percentage error for the historical forecasted runs compared with the estimated runs, there’s an 80% probability that the 2022 UCI run forecast range falls between 3.30 million and 10.11 million fish.
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