The Pink salmon is also known as the "humpback" or "humpy" because of the flattened hump which develops on the back of an adult male before spawning. In many Alaskan coastal fishing communities the Pink salmon is called "bread and butter." Pink salmon also contribute substantially to the catch of sport anglers and subsistence users in Alaska. It's native from Pacific to Arctic coastal waters in the east (northern California to Canada), and in the west from the Lena River in Siberia to Korea.

The Pink salmon is the smallest of the Pacific salmon found in North America with an average weight of up to four pounds and average length of twenty to twenty-five inches. An adult pink salmon returning to the coastal waters has a bright steely blue back and a silvery color on the sides with large black spots on the back and tail fin. It has scales that are very small and has pink flesh. When they spawn, the males have brown to black backs and a white belly; females become olive green with dusky bars or patches on the back and a light colored belly. When the male reaches the spawning stream it develops the hump on its back and has hooked jaws. Juvenile pink salmon are silvery without the dark vertical bars of the young of other salmon species.

In late June and mid-October adult Pink salmon enter Alaskan spawning streams. They spawn within a few miles of the coast, and spawning at the mouth of streams is very common. The female carries between 1,500 and 2,000 eggs. Before she releases her eggs she has to dig a nest. The eggs are immediately fertilized by one or more males after they are released from the female. Within two weeks the male and female die after spawning. The eggs hatch in the winter into alevins, or fry with yolk sacs attached. The alevins feed on the yolk material for their development. In late winter or spring the fry migrate downstream into salt water. Pink salmon mature in two years which means that odd-year and even-year populations are unrelated.

In the early years of fishing, floating fish traps were employed to catch Pink salmon, but such traps were prohibited in 1959. The commercial Pink salmon catch comprises about sixty-seven percent of the total North American catch and about twenty-five percent of the total catch worldwide.

Pink salmon fisheries are important in all coastal regions of Alaska south of Kotzebue Sound. Commercial canning and salting of Pink salmon began in the late 1800's and expanded until 1920. Runs declined a lot duing the 1940's and 1950's, however. Now intensive effort is being made to rebuild those runs through hatcheries, fish ladders, and improved regulatory management.

Tatiana Sergie