Smaller sockeye are part of a larger trend of shrinking salmon
The sockeye returning to Bristol Bay this year are smaller. The average fish this summer weighs just 4.5 pounds down more than half a pound from 2020, according to data from the Mckinley Research Group.
That has been a trend over the past four decades, as increasingly smaller fish have returned to the bay amid larger salmon runs and warming oceans. That’s according to Dan Schindler, a fisheries professor at the University of Washington who has researched Bristol Bay salmon for decades.
“The size of fish has declined for their age. So the size of 2-ocean fish has been declining slowly over time, and the size of 3-ocean fish has been slowly declining over time,” he said.