Bristol Bay 2027 sockeye forecast to fall below 50 million, ending an 11-year run

Scientists with the University of Washington Fisheries Research Institute and the University of Alaska Fairbanks published a preliminary forecast on Aug. 18 putting Bristol Bay's 2027 sockeye run at 44.2 million fish, with a harvest of 28.6 million fish, or 158 million pounds. That is below the 50 million mark the bay cleared every year from 2015 through 2025.

Curry Cunningham of the University of Alaska Fairbanks produced the report with Chris Boatright, Ray Hilborn and Daniel Schindler of the University of Washington. The authors are direct about how much weight the figure carries, writing that it should be considered "advisory rather than a formal forecast" because it was made before finalized 2026 data is released, is aggregated across stocks, and is less accurate than the official November forecast.

Where the 2026 run finally landed is not yet on the record. Fish and Game has not published a 2026 season summary, and its last inseason announcement, on July 15, gave district totals rather than a bay-wide figure. The state's official 2026 forecast was 45.32 million, and the institute's own inseason model put the run at 47.3 million by mid-July, 14 percent above what it had forecast before the season.

Measured against recent seasons, 44.2 million is a step down. The report places it 28 percent below the ten-year average of 61.0 million and 13 percent below the twenty-year average of 50.8 million. Measured against the state's own scale, it is a strong run. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game grades runs of 43 to 55 million fish as strong.

The most recent completed season is 2025. The state's summary recorded an inshore run of 56.7 million fish, the seventh largest since 2005 and the eleventh consecutive year above 50 million. The commercial harvest reached 41.2 million sockeye, 23 percent above the 20-year average, with a preliminary exvessel value across all salmon species of $215.3 million.

A second method points to a similar place. NOAA and Fish and Game surface trawl surveys of juvenile sockeye in the eastern Bering Sea in 2025 project a 2027 run of 44.8 to 48.3 million fish. The formal UW-FRI preseason forecast is due in November 2026, with abundance estimates by age class for all nine Bristol Bay rivers.