Too Many Pinks in the Pacific

Too Many Pinks in the Pacific

By Miranda Weiss

Source: hakaimagazine

6/1/2022

The Tutka Bay Lagoon Hatchery is located at the edge of an isolated estuary off southcentral Alaska’s Kachemak Bay. Accessible only by boat from the closest hub community of Homer, the hatchery is one of 30 constructed by the state to boost commercial salmon fisheries that were struggling in the 1970s. On the last day of April, I board a water taxi in the Homer harbor to visit the facility. A raging westerly wind careens across the bay as the 10-meter landing craft slams into swells the skipper describes as “sporty.”

I’m visiting during the hatchery’s ponding process—the transfer of pink salmon fry from freshwater incubators on land to floating saltwater pens in the lagoon. This is the first step before the hatchery releases about 60 million paper clip–sized pink salmon into the ocean where they’ll disperse to feed and mature by next summer.

Salmon, Pink

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