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.”