FishWatch

Harvesting Sockeye Salmon

Historically, aboriginal peoples considered sockeye salmon an important food source, eating them fresh or drying them for winter use. Today, sockeye salmon remain an important spiritual icon and source of food for Northwest and Alaskan tribes, support one of the most important commercial fisheries on the Pacific coast of North America, and are increasingly sought after in recreational fisheries.

Sockeye salmon are primarily harvested commercially in net fisheries – gillnet fisheries take the greatest number, but sockeye salmon are also an important catch for purse seine fisheries. Gillnetters catch salmon by setting curtain-like nets perpendicular to the sockeyes’ trajectory as they migrate along the coast toward freshwater. The mesh openings on the nets are just large enough to allow males (which are usually larger) to get stuck, or gilled, in the mesh. Purse seiners catch salmon by encircling them with a long net and drawing the bottom closed to capture the fish. Sockeye salmon are also caught incidentally in commercial troll fisheries for chinook and coho salmon. Fishing gear used to harvest salmon does not contact the ocean floor, so it doesn’t impact habitat. Bycatch is also low and usually consists of other salmon species.

Management

Who’s in charge? Alaska Department of Fish and Game , NOAA Fisheries, and the Pacific and North Pacific Fishery Management Councils

Current management:
Alaska: Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Salmon Fisheries in the EEZ off the Coast of Alaska
All management of the salmon fisheries in federal waters is deferred to the State of Alaska , which is also responsible for managing the commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries for salmon in state waters. This allows management to remain consistent throughout salmon’s range. Managers regulate the fishery based on “escapement goals” to ensure harvests are sustainable – they want enough salmon to be able to escape the fishery and return to freshwater to spawn and replenish the population.

Salmon fishery management largely relies on in-season assessment of how many salmon return to freshwater to spawn. Managers set harvest levels based on these returns – when abundance is high and the number of fish returning is much higher than needed to meet escapement goals, allowed harvests are set higher. In years of low abundance, harvest levels are lowered. During the season, scientists monitor catch and escapement, comparing current returns with those from previous years, to keep an eye on abundance and actively manage the fishery.

West Coast: Pacific Coast Salmon Plan
All Pacific salmon species fall under the jurisdiction of this plan, although currently it  contains fishery management objectives only for Chinook, coho, pink, and any salmon species listed under the Endangered Species Act. There are no directed fisheries for sockeye salmon in federal waters in this area, and sockeye salmon are only occasionally caught in the fisheries managed by the Council.

International: Adult salmon returning to Washington migrate through both U.S. and Canadian waters and are harvested by fishermen from both countries. To coordinate management, research, and enhancement of these shared Pacific salmon stocks, the United States and Canada signed the Pacific Salmon Treaty in 1985. They created the Pacific Salmon Commission to implement the treaty and provide regulatory advice and recommendations to U.S. and Canadian management agencies that regulate salmon fisheries. In 2009, the two countries ratified a new abundance-based management agreement, extending this bilateral management process through 2018.

Annual Harvest

In 2010, U.S. fishermen harvested 254 million pounds of sockeye salmon. Nearly 241.8 million pounds came from Alaska, over 11.2 million pounds came from Washington, and the remaining 1,000 pounds came from Oregon.

Economy

Sockeye salmon is the most valuable U.S. salmon species, both for its roe and its rich orange-red meat. The roe is processed while fresh and marketed primarily in Japan. Sockeye salmon remain the preferred species for canning due to the rich orange-red color of their flesh. Today, however, more than half of the sockeye salmon catch is sold fresh or frozen rather than canned. Canned sockeye salmon is marketed primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States, while most frozen sockeye salmon is purchased by Japan. The 2010 commercial harvest was worth $278.6 million.

Recreational

Salmon are a favorite catch of recreational fishermen. To ensure recreational fisheries are sustainable, West Coast anglers are only allowed to keep a certain amount of salmon per fishing trip. In Alaska, regulations vary by area and individual fisheries. Recreational fisheries in high-use areas (Cook Inlet, Southeast Alaska, Copper River) are regulated through management plans that allocate fish between competing commercial and recreational fishermen.