Ongoing Chinook/King Salmon Conservation Concerns
The 2026 pre-season forecast is for 16,700 large Chinook Salmon.
The most recent in-season projection was provided on May 28, indicating a slightly lower run size of 15,168. This is above the 10-year average of 11,300 – but is still below the Management Objective of 17,400. In 2025, the Stikine River watershed saw a terminal (or final) estimated run size of 15,172 which was a significant increase from the 2024 run size estimate of 8,000-9,000 large Chinook.
The Stikine River Chinook stocks continue to remain concerning to the Tahltan Nation and is of international concern for both Canada and the US. Although we are seeing some promising improvement, both Canada and the United States are continuing to take serious management measures and actions to avoid the harvest of Pacific Chinook salmon, which include:
- No directed commercial or assessment fishery
- Non-retention of all Chinook (dead or alive)
- The full angling closure of the Tahltan River from the confluence of the Stikine up
- Delaying the US subsistence Sockeye fishery
- Delaying the start of the Canada/US Sockeye commercial openings
- Delaying the opening of our First Nation fisheries to minimize the incidental catches of chinook
Enforcement of the Chinook closure will be in effect again for the 2026 fishing season.
In 2025 we observed an increase in the numbers of King salmon recorded through the video counter at Little Tahltan River.
There were 690 Large (406 females-284 males) 437 Medium (79 females-358 males) and 105 Small (1 female-104 males). In comparison to the 233 Large Chinook (King) salmon recorded at the 2024 Little Tahltan weir, the 2025 escapement of 690 is an encouraging indicator that perhaps the Stikine River Chinook salmon populations are in early stages of recovery.