By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce

The number of salmon returning to the Yukon River in Alaska and Canada are generally down, but an international panel is betting on a repeat of stronger-than-expected runs of fall chums and chinooks in 2006.

The Yukon River Panel, which operates under the umbrella of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, issued its prediction March 31 on the heels of a meeting a week earlier in Whitehorse, in Canada's Yukon Territory.

The panel found that runs returning in 2005 were significantly stronger than expected and predicted similar runs in 2006, while giving credit to stock rebuilding conservation measures.

Gene Sandone, a fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said a stock rebuilding plan remains in progress. But that "fall chum stocks are coming back, and they are coming back pretty strong.

"Last year was a record run for the Yukon," he said. "Some 438,000 chum salmon swam upriver past the Canadian border, off of a spawning escapement of 34,000 (four years earlier). We've never had a run like that (before). Hopefully the production will continue this coming year."

The panel allocated $1.2 million for salmon restoration and enhancement projects, recommended priorities for resource management and research projects, and established specific escapement guidelines for management of 2006 salmon stocks.

Management measures for 2006 envision subsistence in Alaska, aboriginal fisheries in the Yukon Territory, and sport and limited commercial fisheries for both chinook and fall chum stocks of Canadian origin.

The panel also said allocation and escapement objectives set by the panel have been met and exceeded in recent years, and the use of new technology has advanced the panel's management goals, particularly as they relate to genetic identification in allocation of harvest and stock escapement.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.