Alaska's 2024 commercial salmon harvest was among the lowest since records began and offered the lowest inflation-adjusted value to harvesters since 1975.

The fallout from the closure of the central Gulf of Alaska pollock fishery, in response to the salmon bycatch, continues. Afterward, a number of readers responded with similar questions: What happened to those salmon? Were they sold? Donated? Thrown back into the water? The short answer, according to a federal management official: The salmon were “discarded.”

Researchers are puzzled by an increase in salmon shark sightings near Kodiak, with unclear links to king salmon declines and insufficient data on shark populations and movements.