Summer is waning – with sockeye and Chinook salmon harvests slipping away – while silver salmon harvests awaited their peaks in Alaska, including in Prince William Sound.
As of Sept. 2, the preliminary Prince William Sound harvest stood at more than 47 million fish, with 1.2 million sockeyes, 41.6 million pink, 4.6 million chum, and 5,000 Chinook salmon.
The Prince William Sound general seine district has recorded the highest overall harvest of 36.7 million salmon, including more than 35 million humpies. The purse seine fisheries in Prince William Sound were closed, but Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials said there might be another opener on Sept. 4.
Prince Willliam Sound Aquaculture Corp. began its cost recovery sales program on July 27 and harvested 91% of the assigned pink salmon revenue goal through Aug. 22. The Valdez Fishery Development Association completed its pink salmon egg take on Aug. 28.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists, who compile the preliminary commercial salmon harvest data, put the overall harvest to date at 180 million fish – including 109 million pink, 52 million sockeye, 17 million chum, 1.7 million coho, and 165,000 Chinook.
Costco warehouses in Anchorage had fresh fillets of sockeye salmon for $9.99 a pound, while other retail seafood outfits – including 10th & M Seafoods, New Sagaya, Fred Meyer and Carrs Safeway – were featuring coho salmon fillets priced from $10.39 to $17.99 a pound. The online Anchorage seafood retailer FishEx still had Copper River sockeye portions for $36.95 a pound, down from $56.95 a pound earlier in the season.
Global seafood supplier Tradex reported on its website on Sept. 1 that the Alaska sockeye harvest had reached 98% of its forecast, with more than 41 million reds caught. Alaska’s pink salmon harvest has fallen short of the forecast of 138 million fish, but silver salmon were showing up with an 84% year-over-year increase, and peak landings anticipated in early September.
Chum harvests have reached more than 17 million fish, or 80% of the forecast.
Tradex noted that meanwhile, in Russia, the Far East fisheries had delivered more than 305,000 metric tons of salmon by late August, down 44% since 2023, with the decline attributed nearly entirely to pink salmon. Total landings of 221,000 metric tons of pink salmon were 53% below 2023, with Kamchatka running over 50% behind the previous odd year.
The coho harvest in Russia has reached more than 4,700 metric tons, or about 6% above the 2024 harvest. Chum harvests of more than 35,000 metric tons were up 27% year-over-year.
The Tradex report said with sockeye and Chinook inventories stable but limited, that coho and chum will be the most dynamic players shaping the rest of the 2025 season.
Correction: The print version of this story misstated that harvests had surpassed peaks.
