State skips Kuskokwim subsistence salmon survey after grant request goes unfunded

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game didn't run its door-to-door survey of subsistence salmon harvests on the Kuskokwim River this year after its federal grant request went unfunded.

"Not currently funded. No surveys conducted in 2026," reads a department slide for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Subsistence Regional Advisory Council's meeting in Bethel last week.

The survey usually starts Sept. 1 in 28 communities, Bethel included. No permits or harvest reports are required on the river, so the survey is "the only estimate of the total subsistence salmon harvest" in the area, according to the project's proposal. Its results feed forecasts, in-season management and escapement goals.

The last survey counted 176,808 salmon harvested in 2025, in draft results, up from 131,160 in 2024. The Chinook harvest stayed below the 67,200 to 109,800 fish the state says subsistence users need, a range not reached since 2010.

The department had asked the federal Fisheries Resource Monitoring Program for $938,557 over four years, according to the program's 2026 plan. Reviewers called the cost reasonable, and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta council said it "strongly supports" harvest surveys. The project still didn't make the final 10. The plan had anticipated up to $9 million for new projects. The program got about $2.5 million from the Interior Department and $2.8 million from the Agriculture Department.

Alida Trainor of the department's Division of Subsistence told the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group in August that the division had looked for other money without success. Staff hoped to reach some high-harvesting communities later in the fall on a smaller budget, she said. Avery Hoffman of the Orutsararmiut Native Council, the survey's Bethel partner, said the loss "hit us hard."

For Chinook, the department estimates this year's harvest at 30,560 by expanding an in-season count of 22,757 fish from Tuntutuliak to Tuluksak, using a 10-year relationship with past survey results, according to a Sept. 15 letter. No record gives a method for chum, sockeye or coho.

A draft letter from all 10 federal subsistence regional councils asks that the monitoring program be restored to at least 2025 funding levels.