Yukon River salmon run picking up, officials find

The annual salmon run on the Yukon River is looking better than expected, raising optimism by federal authorities that fishing restrictions could be lifted for the first time in years.

More than 28,000 salmon have moved across the Alaska-Yukon border, according to the latest sonar count conducted on the river Tuesday at Eagle, Alaska.

"There's room for optimism in the number of fish that are coming into the upper Yukon. The count through yesterday was 28,380," Sandy Johnston, the Yukon's chief stock assessor for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, told CBC News on Wednesday.

"If these numbers keep picking up the way we think they will, then restrictions that have been in place would be reconsidered."

Last year's salmon run on the Yukon River was nearly 10,000 fish short of 45,000 expected to reach their spawning grounds in Canada, marking the worst salmon return on record.

The poor run came despite fishery quota cutbacks and other conservation measures set by DFO. The department closed sport, commercial and domestic fisheries on the Yukon River, as well as cut back aboriginal subsistence fishing quotas.

Fisheries officials on both sides of the border have since been keeping a closer eye on this year's salmon run.

"It's nice to see the numbers the way they are," Johnston said. "Hopefully the pulse of fish that we are expecting over the next couple of days will materialize."

Johnston said fishing restrictions, imposed this year in Alaska, may be paying off for the Yukon.

Yukon First Nations have been warned to expectcutbacks to thesubsistence fishery similar to thosethey faced last year, but Johnston said that may not be necessary.

"It's early for the projection, but I expect that we'll be looking at numbers that are at least in what we consider the 'green management zone,'" he said.

"If that is true, then restrictions that have been in place would be reconsidered."

Johnston said the current run of salmon has already reached Carmacks and the Big Salmon River. The fish could reach Whitehorse sometime next week.