subsistence

Surveyors with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are knocking on doors in Unalaska this week and asking questions about salmon.

Qawalangin Tribe President Harriet Berikoff said it was a tough year for subsistence fishing in Unalaska. Rough boating weather and low salmon numbers meant most families weren't able to fill their freezers. Last week, September 7th, the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska donated $22,000 worth of sockeye salmon to its tribal members.

The governor’s task force to review the effect of bycatch in Alaska fisheries is working to organize against its tight timeline for submitting recommendations to state and federal policymakers. It also has to balance commercial and subsistence interests.

Fur seals are an essential subsistence food for the Unangax̂ communities in the Bering Sea’s Pribilof Islands. But for years, scientists have been unable to explain why the seals’ populations have been falling. Now, a new peer-reviewed study points its finger at an industry that’s long been suspected, but never definitively linked with the population declines: Alaska’s huge commercial pollock fishery, which harvests the same species that nursing female seals rely on to feed their pups.

Unalaska fishermen cannot take salmon at McLees Lake within 500 yards of the river mouth.The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued that reminder…

For the last century, reindeer have roamed St. Paul Island without much oversight.But now, the tribal government is stepping up its management style to…

St. Paul’s greenhouse isn’t what you’d imagine. There’s no big glass structure. All the windows are covered from the inside. It’s underneath the city’s…

Gregory Fratis Sr. isn’t a fan of salmon.“Fresh cooked salmon, uh, uh. I don’t like it,” said Fratis. “I can taste that fishy taste.”The 76-year-old says…

Unalaskans are worried about the sockeye salmon run at Front Beach — thanks to a growing number of nets and seemingly fewer fish.That's why the…

For the first time ever, Unalaska is hosting the group that guides federal subsistence rules in Southwest Alaska. Since it formed in the 1990s, the…