Friday, April 24, 2026
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Alaska
GAPP Announces Results of Assessment for U.S. Alaska Pollock Fishery
The Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) - April 22, 2026
The Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) announced the results of a second, comprehensive life cycle assessment that measured nine impact contributions from the harvesting and processing of Wild Alaska Pollock in 2024 including greenhouse gas emissions, acidification potential, marine eutrophication potential, freshwater eutrophication potential, marine ecotoxicity potential, freshwater ecotoxicity potential, terrestrial ecotoxicity potential, energy resource use and ozone depletion potential.
St. Paul regains regular air service after months of charter flights
KUCB by Theo Greenly - April 23, 2026
Aleutian Airways flew its first scheduled Saab 2000 flight to St. Paul on Monday, restoring regularly scheduled passenger service to Anchorage nearly nine months after Ravn Alaska ended its route to the Bering Sea community.
Trollers get early shot at Burnett Inlet chum this season
KSTK by Colette Czarnecki - April 21, 2026
The commercial chum salmon troll fishery at Burnett Inlet 25 miles near Wrangell will open earlier than usual this year. It’s opening on June 27 – usually the fishery starts in early July.
Alaska's 2026 Salmon Forecast Falls 36% on Lower Pink Salmon Returns
SeafoodNews by Peggy Parker - April 23, 2026
The most recent forecast from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was released April 21 with a total predicted harvest of 125.5 million salmon, a 36% drop from last year's harvest of 197.4 million fish.
ADF&G’s final report for the coming season, “Run Forecasts and Harvest Projects for 2026 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2025 Season,” provides context for how fisheries managers develop forecasts, including a comparison of actual returns and harvests against forecasts over several years.
The 2026 commercial salmon harvest forecast is 56 million pink, 49.7 million sockeye, 17.2 million chum, and 2.4 million coho salmon. If realized, the forecasted 2026 total Alaska commercial salmon harvest will be approximately 125.5 million fish.
Compared to last year’s actual harvest, this year's predicted 56 million pink salmon is less than half of last year’s 120 million; the forecasted 49.7 million sockeye is slightly under the 52.7 million sockeye landed last year; the 17.2 million chum forecast is slightly lower than last year’s 21.7 million; this fall’s coho harvest estimated to be 2.4 million coho is just under the 2.7 million caught last year, and predicted harvests for Chinook salmon, at 197,000 fish is just under last year’s catch of 201,000 Chinook.
The Alaska all-species salmon harvest for 2025 totaled approximately 197.4 million fish, about 17.3 million fewer fish than the preseason forecast of 214.6 million fish.
The first salmon fishery of the season (wild Alaska troll-caught salmon fishery takes place in the winter in Southeast, but is over in March) begins in mid-May in the Copper River for gill net gear. In June, Prince William Sound opens to seine gear and gillnets. Next is Cook Inlet, a setnet and gill net fishery, followed by Kodiak (all three gear types), Bristol Bay in late June and early to mid-July, and then the Southern Alaska Peninsula for gillnets. In Southeast Alaska, seining for pink salmon begins in mid-July, ramping up to a peak in August.
ADF&G is expecting a decrease in the overall commercial salmon harvest in 2026, mostly due to a decrease in pink salmon harvests compared to 2025.
“There is a great deal of uncertainty in forecasting pink salmon returns due to their fixed 2-year life history and, therefore, limited information to serve as the basis for predictions (i.e., no siblings returning during prior years),” wrote the editors of the report, Christy M. Gleason and Andrew R. Munro.
During recent decades, Alaska-wide pink salmon returns have tended to be larger during odd years than during adjacent even years, although there is much regional variation to this trend.
The Bristol Bay forecasted run totals 45.32 million sockeye. This is 26% smaller than the most recent 10-year average of 61.0 million fish and 21% greater than the long-term average of 37.40 million fish (1963–2025).
The University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program also makes predictions on Bristol Bay returns and calculated harvests, prior to the season. UW/ASP’s forecast is 41.5 million sockeye. This is 32% lower than the recent 10-year average (60.1 million) and 18% lower than the recent 20-year average (50.8 million) of observed sockeye runs to Bristol Bay.
ADF&G’s estimated harvest from that run number is 33.53 million fish: 32.26 million fish in Bristol Bay and 1.27 million fish in the South Peninsula June fishery. A Bristol Bay inshore harvest of this size is 21% less than the most recent 10-year average harvest of 41.09 million, and 38% greater than the long-term average harvest of 23.40 million fish.
For UW/AFP scientists, their predicted inshore harvest is 29.1 million sockeye salmon. They also note that the average weights used in the 2026 preseason forecast were 4.9 lbs and 6.6 lbs for 2-ocean and 3-ocean sockeye salmon, respectively.
ADF&G’s breakdown of Bristol Bay’s total catch is for:
- Naknek-Kvichak: 6.23 million sockeye
- Egigik: 7.53 million
- Ugashik: 4.96 million
- Nugashick: 13.86 million
- Togiak: 0.39
For a total of 32.36 million sockeye.
In the Copper River, an average run of sockeyes is predicted to be 1.4 million, resulting in a commercial harvest of 780,000 sockeye.
In Prince William Sound, a strong wild run of pinks is forecast at 4.7 million, yielding a predicted catch of 3.9 million. A strong run of wild chum is estimated at 586,000 fish, with an estimated commercial catch of 413,000 chum salmon.
In Upper Cook Inlet, an exceptional run of 7.1 million sockeyes is tempered by a week run of pinks in Lower Cook Inlet — 183,000 fish.
The 2026 Southeast Alaska pink salmon harvest is expected to be near average, with a harvest forecast of 19 million fish.
National
US House committee advances FISH Act
SeafoodSource by Nathan Strout - April 23, 2026
The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee has approved the Fighting Illegal Seafood Harvests (FISH) Act, legislation intended to penalize foreign vessels and individuals who participate illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
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International
Seafood industry braces for fresh US tariffs as policy uncertainty rattles transatlantic trade
'I think a couple of companies that are exporting to the USA will be looking for new markets, because it's getting too complicated' -- Guus Pastoor, Seafood Europe
Undercurrent News by Cliff White - April 22, 2026
The threat of renewed US tariffs hung over discussions at Seafood Expo Global on Tuesday (April 21), with industry leaders serving on a trade-focused panel warning US president Donald Trump is destabilizing transatlantic commerce...
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Labeling and Marketing
BBRSDA steps up marketing campaign for robust 2026 season
National Fisherman by Margaret Bauman - April 22, 2026
Harvesting of the 2026 run of Bristol Bay salmon, forecast to top 32 million fish, doesn't begin until June 1, but marketing efforts of the celebrated sockeyes are already underway.
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