Alaska Fish Factor: 2020 salmon catch expected to be down 36% after 2019 season

Alaska’s total salmon catch for 2020 is projected to be down 36 percent from last year’s haul of 207 million fish, the eighth largest on record that was valued at nearly $658 million at the docks.

In the Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections and Review of the 2019 Season just released by the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, managers are calling for a harvest of just under 133 million salmon across Alaska. The decline is driven by a much lower forecast for those hard to predict pink salmon of just over 60 million fish, down nearly 53 percent.

Here are the salmon harvest forecasts and outlooks for...