Friday June 14, 2024
KYUK —
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Qawalangin Tribe were unable to get funding to count fish and collect data this summer at Unalaska’s McLees Lake, where the community harvests a large majority of its subsistence sockeye salmon.
But the organizations will be installing a brand new weir and counting salmon for the first time at Iliuliuk Creek.
Annie Brewster, a fisheries biologist with ADF&G, said they will be counting the number of pinks and reds that make it up the creek and into Unalaska Lake.
“We’re expecting to get around 6500 pink salmon and around 500 sockeye salmon,” Brewster said.
Those numbers are based on past foot and drone surveys, which don’t provide reliable data because the lake is so cloudy, according to Brewster.