Fish & Water - Sounds Wild
Test Fishery

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Transcript

On a sunny day in July, a purse seiner draws its net around a thousand pink and chum salmon in the Inside Waters of Southeast Alaska. This looks like a typical commercial seine operation, but these seiners are especially attentive to the catch. This is a test fishery and they are working with Fish and Game to assess the abundance of pinks and chums returning to the area. Every year here, one day a week for five weeks in June and July, contract fishermen like this note the number of salmon caught per set, their weight, and the ratio of males to females. Comparing this information to past years provides insights into abundance, run strength, run timing, and harvest rates.

males tend to be more numerous early in the run and females are more numerous later in the run. Comparing the sex ratio to the historical average indicates whether the run is earlier, later or similar to the run timing in previous years.

On this early July day, the ratio was 70 percent male, implying the run is later than normal. About twelve-hundred pinks were caught per set, well above the ten-year average. The average weight of the pinks was two and a half pounds, and the average weight of chums was about six pounds.