In August I was in southeast Alaska right when pinks were starting their run. I caught a salmon with my bare hands right out of the water, it was amazing.
In Ketchikan's little waterways, there were so many salmon that it was mind-boggling. I grew up in the PNW so salmon is kind of a thing I was taught basically everything about from a very young age, but I don't think I ever grasped just the sheer insane quantity of salmon there.
Seeing some of the photos and hearing the stories of how the salmon cannery industry exploded and then dwindled due to overfishing made me realize just how bountiful the salmon were hundreds of years ago before all that land was stolen and colonized. It must have been incredible.
It's encouraging to see that it's being managed but there's still so much left to be done, and this article just shows that even though there's big swings, the whole ecosystem is very fragile.
There are reports that shoals were so thick that ships were unable to sail through them. There’s good reason humans spread across the earth mainly following shore lines: it was the easiest living.
In Ketchikan's little waterways, there were so many salmon that it was mind-boggling. I grew up in the PNW so salmon is kind of a thing I was taught basically everything about from a very young age, but I don't think I ever grasped just the sheer insane quantity of salmon there.
Seeing some of the photos and hearing the stories of how the salmon cannery industry exploded and then dwindled due to overfishing made me realize just how bountiful the salmon were hundreds of years ago before all that land was stolen and colonized. It must have been incredible.
It's encouraging to see that it's being managed but there's still so much left to be done, and this article just shows that even though there's big swings, the whole ecosystem is very fragile.