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NCEAS Story
How A Massive Dataset and A Set of Rural Communities Are Helping to Sustain Alaska’s Salmon: Podcast: Alaska’s Exceptional Salmon Data
Across the state of Alaska, salmon are returning from sea at younger ages and therefore smaller adult sizes. Alaskans have long noted these changes, which have also been observed in previous scientific studies. The Salmon Size Working Group is the first to compare trends across all of Alaska’s regions and species.
Among the findings of the Salmon Size Working Group is that the size of salmon returning to Alaska rivers is generally declining across species. However, the degree of size change varies among species—Chinook salmon are experiencing the greatest–and fastest—decline.
The plots in Figure 1 were created from more than 7.5 million measurements of salmon collected by state and federal agencies. The data are representative of fish in commercial catch and escapement projects.
How A Massive Dataset and A Set of Rural Communities Are Helping to Sustain Alaska’s Salmon: Podcast: Alaska’s Exceptional Salmon Data