River or lake, United States
Bristol Bay
The south-west Alaska bay and rivers with the largest sockeye salmon run in the world.
Bristol Bay, in south-west Alaska, is fed by nine major rivers that drain a land of lakes and tundra. Each summer tens of millions of sockeye salmon return from the sea to spawn in these rivers and lakes, the largest sockeye run in the world. In the record year of 2022 the run was about 79 million fish. The bay's fishery supplies roughly half of the world's wild sockeye.
The run
Sockeye spend one to three years in the bay's lakes, two or three years at sea, then return in a few weeks of late June and July. Fleets of small gillnet boats fish the river mouths under limits set daily by Alaska's fisheries managers, who count fish moving upriver and open fishing only when enough have passed to spawn. The other four Pacific salmon species also run here, and the region is famous for its trout fishing.
The Pebble mine dispute
A large copper and gold deposit lies near the headwaters of two of the bay's main rivers. The proposed Pebble mine divided opinion for nearly two decades: its backers pointed to jobs and minerals, while fishers, Alaska Native groups and conservationists warned of harm to the salmon. In 2023 the US Environmental Protection Agency used the Clean Water Act to block mine waste disposal in the area, and the mine's owner has challenged the decision in court.
Fish of Bristol Bay
Still to be written: Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, Chum salmon, Pink salmon, Rainbow trout.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Sockeye salmon: Timothy Knepp of the Fish and Wildlife Service., Public domain, source