Chinook Salmon Research Initiative
Copper River Chinook Salmon

Copper River Adult Chinook Salmon Spawning Abundance

Adult Chinook salmon mark-recapture and age, sex and length studies. The Copper River Chinook salmon stock is composed of six major spawning stocks. Upriver stocks, like the Gulkana and Chistochina, are genetically distinct and exhibit early run-timing patterns; these stocks are heavily relied on because of their early entry and importance to commercial, subsistence, personal-use, and sport fisheries. The Gulkana River Chinook salmon distribution study, in conjunction with a counting tower that estimates upper Gulkana River escapement, will provide a method to estimate the total escapement of Chinook salmon on a highly utilized stock, and the only method to assess the inseason progression of escapement for any individual Chinook salmon stock in the Copper River drainage.

Copper River near Gulkana

$345,000

2014, 2015, 2016

Adult abundance

Adult

Copper River Chinook salmon