The Kenai is a motherlode of natural salmon production.

In terms of sheer anadromous biomass in descending order, there's an escapement of 1-2 million pinks every even year (2 orders of magnitude less on odd years), 0.75-1.5 million sockeye every year, perhaps 50-100K coho (they can't/won't count'em), 30-40K chinook, a tiny population of chum, and an even smaller population of steelhead.

Sub-yearling juveniles likely benefit from the alternate year influx of pink carcasses.... as do the resident trout scarfing up all those eggs post-spawn.

I still marvel that after over a century of TAKE TAKE TAKE that the river can still continue to GIVE GIVE GIVE.

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=639
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!