Visual Stories

Photos: Setnetting for salmon on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula

KENAI -- This summer, just as they have done for generations, setnetters are working the shores of the western Kenai Peninsula, stringing out nets and hauling in hundreds of thousands of fish from the abundant sockeye salmon runs of Southcentral Alaska.

But along with those sockeyes, the setnetters also pull thousands of king salmon from the waters of Cook Inlet. And it's those kings -- Alaska's best-known, most-marketable fish and one that has seen increasingly troublesome declines in recent years -- that have made setnetters the target of a statewide ballot initiative that could eliminate the longtime fishery.

Read more: With court date on ballot measure looming, Kenai setnetters ponder their future

ADVERTISEMENT