10+ hour, 49+ min ago (345+ words) Fishery biologists expect another strong year for sockeye salmon in southwestern Alaska's Bristol Bay region, site of the world's largest runs of the fish, also known as red salmon. Next year's run is not expected to equal the magnitude of the huge runs in some recent record-breaking and near-record years, however, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's preseason forecast. The forecast, released earlier this month, predicts a return of 45.32 million Bristol Bay sockeye salmon next year, enough to support a harvest of 33.5 million fish. This year's Bristol Bay run totaled 56.7 million fish, and the harvest totaled 41.2 million fish. The record highs were set in 2022, when a run of 79 million sockeye salmon supported a harvest of just over 60 million fish. If the 2026 forecast proves to be accurate, that would place next year's Bristol Bay sockeye run below the…...

6+ mon, 4+ day ago (578+ words) Introduced in the last hours of the 2025 session, the bill would expand the protections granted by the EPA, which barred permitting of the Pebble project. New bill would prohibit hard-rock metals mining in Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed Mere hours before he banged his gavel to adjourn this year's session of the Alaska House of Representatives, Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, introduced a bill to bar metals mining from the Bristol Bay watershed. The measure, House Bill 233, would expand on the Environmental Protection Agency's 2023 decision prohibiting permitting of the controversial Pebble project in the region. The Biden administration action, which followed up on a process started in the Obama administration, invoked a rarely used provision on the Clean Water Act to prevent development of the huge open-pit copper and gold mine planned for the region upstream from salmon-rich Bristol Bay. Edgmon's bill…...