FAIRBANKS - This year's king salmon run on the Yukon River could be one of the worst, forcing federal fisheries managers to curtail subsistence fishing.
"This is really a serious situation," Russ Holder, a fisheries biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Monday. "If the run does not significantly improve, folks upriver are going to have difficulty reaching 50 percent of their subsistence harvest goals this year for chinook salmon."
People living along Alaska's biggest waterway seek out the oil-rich Yukon kings to put up for the winter.
"That's what most people are targeting," Holder said.
The low return of Yukon kings prompted state and federal fish managers to cut subsistence time in half, a restriction that took effect Monday.
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