Next year's pink salmon harvest forecast at 45% above this year

State and federal fisheries managers predict that Southeast Alaska fishermen will harvest about 29 million pink salmon in 2025, an “average” harvest based on catch data going back to 1960 but a 45% boost over this year’s catch.

The prediction comes from a joint National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries and Alaska Department of Fish and Game 2025 Southeast Alaska Pink Salmon Harvest Forecast that the state released Nov. 19.

The 2025 forecast for 29 million pinks is “approximately 60% of the parent-year (2023) harvest of 48 million,” Fish and Game said.

Managers predict that the 2025 pink salmon harvest will increase from 2024, when the commercial fleet in Southeast and Yakutat harvested approximately 19.9 million pinks, according to preliminary salmon harvest data.

Teresa Fish, the state’s Southeast pink and chum project leader, noted in an email to the Ketchikan Daily News that managers’ 2024 harvest prediction of approximately 19 million pink salmon was “pretty close” to the actual harvest.

The department's 2025 prediction for a Southeast Alaska harvest of 29 million pink salmon is “slightly above” the region's 10-year average annual commercial harvest of 26 million pinks from 2015 through 2024, according to Fish and Game.

Almost all pink salmon return to their home streams two years after they spawn. In recent years, pink salmon returns and harvests in Southeast Alaska have been larger during odd-numbered years than in even-numbered years.

In recent odd-numbered years, managers’ harvest predictions have shown “poor forecast accuracy,” according to the Nov. 19 announcement.

In 2021, commercial fishermen harvested about 48.5 million pink salmon after managers predicted a 2021 harvest of just 28 million pink salmon.

In 2023, commercial fishermen in Southeast Alaska harvested nearly 48 million pink salmon. NOAA and Fish and Game had estimated that commercial fishermen would have a “weak” catch of just 19 million pinks in 2023.

As the 2023 harvest blasted past the forecast, pink salmon markets collapsed mid-season and processors in early August 2023 dropped their pink salmon prices to 20 cents per pound.