Thursday April 4, 2024
CBC News —
In a bid to help the recovery of the Yukon River chinook salmon run, the federal government and the State of Alaska have agreed to implement a seven-year moratorium on fishing the species.
The suspension, in effect for one full life cycle of a salmon, includes commercial fishing and recreational angling in the Yukon River mainstem and its Canadian tributaries. Representatives from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game signed the agreement on Monday.
The number of chinook salmon crossing the international border into Canadian waters has for years plummeted, with the last two years yielding some of the worst tallies recorded on the Yukon River. Last year, about 15,000 of the fish made it to Eagle, Alaska, near the Yukon border. It was even worse in 2022. A minimum of 42,500 chinook are supposed to get to their Canadian spawning waters to meet conservation goals.
Calling the run “depressed,” the new agreement states the salmon are under immense pressure from things like habitat degradation linked to resource and hydroelectric development, hatchery production, and climate change.