As wild salmon stocks continue to struggle across Alaska, advances in research are creating a clearer picture of the many factors contributing to lower returns, lowers sizes and lower survivability.
Westley gave a “State of the Salmon” presentation at Kenai Peninsula College on Thursday night, followed by a panel discussion on the challenges salmon face, the research being done and what could help ensure healthy populations. “Pike really like eating juvenile salmon,” Westley said. “What’s going to happen if things continue to warm up? So predators, like all cold-water fishes, as things heat up, their metabolism speeds up. Consumption’s likely going to go up. So how many more salmon potentially are going to get eaten because of climate change?”
And human harvest takes a toll. One of the questions to the panel was about salmon mortality as bycatch in the trawler industry. Westley says data provided by the trawl industry doesn’t show enough salmon bycatch to make it the smoking gun in declining king stocks.