Gourmet's Barry Estabrook investigated why this season's most sought-after catch is suddenly scarce. The following is an excerpt of his findings published on Gourmet.com.
Life is not good here. The fish are not running. And things are going from bad to worse. Due to the extremely low king return, fishing anything is entirely and wholly out of the question."
That dispatch was sent early this week from Jack Schultheis, operations director of Kwik'pak Fisheries, a processor of salmon caught out of the lower Yukon River in remote western Alaska, to Jon Rowley, who handles communications for the small, Eskimo-owned company. (Rowley is also a Gourmet contributing editor.)
In the last year or so, Yukon River kings have become the "new" Copper River salmon, the most sought-after catch-of-the-day at top-end seafood restaurants because of their unusually high oil content. For a while, it looked like everyone was winning. The salmon were moist, tasty, and healthful. Exports to the Lower 48 provided vital income (sometimes the only income) for struggling native Yup'ik fishing families that use earnings from the fishery to purchase gasoline (currently $7.60 a gallon up there) for necessary subsistence activities such as hunting moose and gathering berries. And, better yet, the stocks were sustainably managed.
Then disaster struck. So few king salmon returned to the Yukon River this month that fishery managers ordered drastic cuts to subsistence fishing. There will be no commercial harvest.
The story continues at Gourmet.com: Politics of the Plate: Tough Times for the King of Kings
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