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![[ Salmon: A Precious Resource!]](specialpic.gif)
Commercial and Recreational Importance
- Alaska's fisheries employ more people than any other state industry.
- Fishermen caught 218 million salmon in 1995 with an ex-vessel value of more than $461
million.
- The largest Chinook salmon ever documented was a 126 lb fish caught in a fish trap near
Petersburg in December, 1939. A 97 lb chinook was caught on sport tackle in the Kenai River.
- Sport fishermen spend more than $500 million in the state each year.
Cultural Importance
- Rich salmon resources are probably what allowed the first Athabaskan people to settle and
survive in interior Alaska's extremely harsh climate.
- Native people in 1,500 households in over 60 communities along the Yukon River harvest over
408,000 salmon for subsistence use every year.
- Rural Alaskans eat an average of 230 pounds of fish per person per year.
- The chum salmon is locally known as dog salmon because of its importance as food for
dog teams once critical for transportation in remote areas.
Ecological Importance
- Alaska contains 63% of the total wetland acreage in the United States. Over half of the state
is covered by wetlands and salmon are critical to the productivity of these
ecosystems.
- Salmon that spawn and die enrich interior Alaska's nutrient-poor streams with nitrates and
phosphates collected during their ocean existence.
- Late runs of chum salmon in southeast Alaska's Chilkat River support concentrations of up
to 3,500 wintering bald eagles.
Text and graphics by USFWS staff
Last modified 4, March, 2009
