Unalaska, AK – Sockeye salmon escapement from Reese Bay into McCleese Lake is extraordinarily low this year and the area known as is Wislow is now closed to all subsistence fishing. So far only 512 fish have gone through the weir. Last year by this point, 2,782 fish had gone up. In 2003, over 61,000 reds had entered the lake. Alaska Department of Fish & Game Biologist Aaron Poetter said it's unclear why returns are so low, but the numbers could be linked to the very high escapements of 2002 and 2003. In each of those years, close to 100,000 thousand salmon passed through the weir.

Very high escapement can lead to a number of problems, Poetter said. "You can have salmon digging up the egg deposition of previous spawners in the same location. You can have conditions where the system goes kind of anoxic - lack of oxygen. You can have over grazing by the surviving fry to the point where they smolt at a very small size in which predation can be higher. There are a number of factors that can lead to the detriment of the system when we see escapements that are in excess of what the system can handle."

Other oceanic factors may also play a part, but Poetter said pinning down how marine conditions might affect the salmon is hard. "That's a very big black box of unknowns. We kind of have some ideas, but exactly what's going on out there - I don't' think anyone's put their finger on it yet."

It's unclear if the low Reese Bay returns have any relationship to low returns through out the state. If the runs improve, the area could open up later this season. The restricted area is south of a line drawn from Cape Cheerful to Cape Wislow.