king salmon

Until recently, the fish was a major source of income and food. What has led to their scarcity is not well understood.

Yukon River smokehouses should be filled this summer with oil-rich strips of king salmon — long used by Alaska Natives as a high-energy food to get through the long Alaska winters.

But they're mostly empty.

A second straight year of weak king salmon returns around the rim of the Gulf of Alaska has state fisheries biologists wondering if they might be staring into the face of a bleak future.

Troubling discussions of PDO -- an acronym for something called the Pacific Decadal Oscill …