The future of set netting and the entire Cook Inlet salmon industry depends on a healthy large group of salmon returning from the ocean each year. To make sure this happens, a number of conditions must be met. Salmon require nice clean streams and lakes which have good stream beds for the salmon to spawn, for the eggs to hatch, and all the little salmon to grow.

Alaska State Parks Photo

In the spring the eggs start to hatch into little salmon which are called fry. They need a lot of food and a place, usually along a water bank, which provides a home for the small salmon to feed and be safe from predators. Salmon such as the sockeye spend time in a fresh water lake.

Biologists have figured out that the destruction of river banks destroys food and shelter for the small salmon. Closing different parts of the river or building walkways along sensitive bank places are examples of ways that people can save the young salmon which are called smolt.

Alaska State Parks Photo

Chemicals, trash, and bank destruction caused by uncontrolled building of things near the edge of the water also are a concern for the lives of young and adult salmon.

One other threat to the survival of lots of salmon is the pressure put on salmon by the commercial and sport fishing industries. Trained biologists are always working on ways to make sure this problem does not destroy this precious resource.

Oceans are the other home where salmon live part of their lives. Over harvest of salmon on the seas by both American and foreign fishing fleets are mostly controlled by on board observers and the U.S. Coast Guard.

A two hundred mile limit which keeps foreign fleets from harvesting Alaskan salmon stocks has been helpful.

Many factors go into the protection of Alaskan fish. Some factors effecting salmon numbers are impossible for man to control. Weather is a good example. Some guess that even El Nino and the very warm water could possibly be a hazard to salmon that are growing and are waiting to return to home rivers that flow into Cook Inlet.

Protecting this valuable resource will take many countries and many people working together.