Slow Red Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) Run

Observation by Shayla Shaishnikoff:

The people of Unalaska Island have been subsisting on salmon for thousands of years. As of late, we have been noticing changes in our oceans. This includes 2018's slow salmon run- particularly red (sockeye) salmon. This year, many families have harvested reportedly less red salmon to stow in their freezers for the winter months. While our rich oceans have provided us with plentiful amounts of salmon in the past, this year we are seeing drastically lower numbers. Unfortunately, ADF&G has been unable to monitor fish counts at the Wislow weir in 2018 due to budget cuts. Last years fish count was reportedly low, with 13,195 salmon passing through the weir. This falls short of the streams average of 31,000. While Unalaska is feeling the effects of these lower numbers in 2018, we will not have that data collection to refer to for answers this year.

In his article, "Salmon are Showing up in the Arctic in Record Numbers," Jimmy Thompson with The Narwhal reports that more salmon species are showing up in greater numbers in northern communities. "And it’s not just pink and chum salmon anymore: other southern species including coho, sockeye and Atlantic salmon are starting to show up as well," Thompson says (7/10/2018).

With this information, I wonder if our usual Aleutian Salmon are moving into the arctic as water temperatures rise- is it possible that El Niño has something to do with this? Or might there be reduced numbers in fish population? And the big question everybody is asking- should we brace ourselves in expectation that these low numbers will reoccur in the future?

Elisabeth Fox, Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands Area Management Biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, writes:

The returns from 2018 seem to be lower for the entire Gulf of Alaska, likely due to an ocean event that increased the mortality of juvenile salmon. There have been several articles about “the Blob” and it’s impacts on salmon returns this season. As far as salmon returning to more northern streams, that is likely more due to the natural straying each species does at some level than the Aleutian salmon going that far north within a season or two. Pinks and chums stray more so than sockeye, but sockeye also have some fish that do not return to their natal streams. The thought is that these stray salmon are the colonizers of new habitats that are exposed either by glacial retreat, dam removal, temperature changes, etc. The northern salmon are expanding their range as those streams are becoming available as viable spawning habitat.

Comments from LEO Editors:

"The Blob" refers to an unusual marine heat wave in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, between 2013 and 2016. The sustained period of warm water has been linked to a number of other environmental changes, such as sea bird die offs due to changes in the marine food web. In collaboration with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Kasitsna Bay Marine Lab, and the National Weather Service, LEO collected observations of environmental change that may be related to the change in ocean temperature. The collected observations can be viewed here, and include marine mammal and fish illness and mortality, plankton and algae bloom events, and changes in rivers, lakes, and streams. Those observations were referenced in a publication led by the National Weather Service, titled "The High Latitude Marine Heat Wave of 2016 and Its Impacts on Alaska" Erica Lujan