News-Miner opinion: After years of returns that ranged between frighteningly low and middling, prospects for chinook salmon on the Yukon River may have finally turned a corner. Even with this year’s run not yet complete, escapement goals on lower Yukon counting stations have already been met and exceeded. As pulses of fish make their way up the river, it appears near certain the fish returning to spawn will comfortably satisfy Alaska Department of Fish and Game escapement goals and treaty obligations with Canada. That’s great news for a fishery upon which dozens of Interior villages rely, and a hopeful sign that a rebound for Yukon chinooks may now be in full effect.
Pilot Station is the sonar project that provides Fish and Game with a snapshot of the run strength as salmon begin swimming upstream from the Bering Sea. Salmon begin swimming past in early June and are now close to the end of their transit past the station. The 258,946 chinooks that have passed by the Pilot Station sonar so far this year make the run the strongest since 2005 (259,015 chinooks total) and a near-certainty to become the strongest run since 2003, when 318,088 chinooks came up the river. That year was the strongest in more than 20 years of counting — the largest chinook run since 1995, the earliest year that sonar counts are available.
Of course, a strong run at the mouth of the river doesn’t mean salmon will necessarily make it upstream to spawn. But the numbers do tend to scale in a fairly predictable manner, such that if a run is extremely strong at the mouth, there will almost certainly be a healthy number of fish that escape to spawn and replenish the river’s stock. In 2005, for instance, the year in which the run’s numbers were most closely similar to this year’s, more than 80,000 chinooks crossed the border into Canada near Eagle, not only satisfying the minimum treaty obligation of 42,500 fish but also its upper guidance of 65,000 needed to help ensure a healthier return. Already this year, many smaller tributaries of the Yukon have met their escapement goals, though rivers close to Fairbanks, such as the Salcha, have had difficulty making accurate counts because of high water.
Also having a banner year are Yukon chums, with a run strength exceeding 3 million. In years past, when the chinook runs were so fragile as to appear in danger of collapse, Yukon River villages had to lean more heavily on chums (which, fortunately, have run strong during almost every year in memory) as a source of food, particularly for dog teams in rural areas. This year, the chinook run strength supports a healthier subsistence harvest. That’s a blessing for communities along the river, for whom the chinooks have high cultural and even spiritual significance. After years of restricted or voided openings, residents can breathe a sigh of relief at a return that allows for a better take.
It merits mention that even with a banner year in 2017, the strength of next year’s return isn’t assured. Chinook salmon born in the Yukon spend years in the Bering Sea before returning to spawn, so those returning next year will be the product not of this year’s spawners but those of other years, some of which saw fairly low returns. That’s good reason to keep up a cautious tack with regard to fishery management and not assume a strong return until one is demonstrated to be underway.
Still, however, this year’s success indicates that the combination of conservative management practices — forbearance by village residents, cautious forecasts by Fish and Game biologists and better policies on bycatch in the Bering Sea commercial fleet — is having success in helping ensure enough chinooks return to the Yukon to keep the fishery healthy. The state and its residents should continue their good work in helping chinooks reach spawning grounds in numbers healthy enough to provide for generations to come.
