In 2013, pink salmon returns in Southeast Alaska broke records, leading commercial fishermen to catch more than 100 million salmon from all five species for the first time ever in the region. Biologists don't expect this year to be quite as stellar, but pinks, which tend to run in odd year cycles, are expected to carry the year for commercial fishermen once again.
For Southeast Alaska, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game predicts a total harvest of a little more than 1.1 million sockeye, 2.9 million coho, 58 million pinks, and a little less than 9.3 million chum (including 7.4 million hatchery chum) for a total, excluding chinook, of 71.3 million salmon caught in Southeast Alaska.
In Alaska as a whole, it predicts 54,000 chinook (excluding Southeast and Yakutat; as of press time the Pacific Salmon Commission hadn't yet published the area's quota), about 58.8 million sockeye, 4.9 million coho, 140.3 million pinks, and 17.2 million chum.
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