In a land dominated by rock and ice... There's something very incongruous about this place.
There's nobody here.
Beasts of all sizes thrive against the odds.
He's running, it's running.
But one species seems to have gone missing.
No one knows where it's gone and no one knows why.
I'm jeremy wade, fisherman and adventurer.
For more than 35 years, I've traveled the globe, Hunting for monsters.
Look at this beast.
But mysteries are still out there.
Something behind me.
I'm journeying into the unknown to reveal... Yes! Ah!
The secrets hidden in these dark waters.
I'm in alaska, Home of the world's longest pacific salmon runs.
Five species of pacific salmon Have navigated these waters for millennia.
But one salmon species is in a class of its own.
Bigger and faster than the rest And famed for their incredible feats of endurance,
King salmon are the power athletes of the salmon world.
The word coming out of alaska recently Is that the king salmon have gone missing.
Now, salmon are born inland, in the rivers.
They then migrate down to the sea, Where they spend a number of years feeding and growing.
Then they return to the river where they were hatched,
And they spawn, and they carry on the lifecycle.
But in the last few years, The kings have not been returning.
So what has happened to them?
The other four species of salmon in alaska... Chum, pink, coho, and sockeye... Are doing fine.
So how can just one species of salmon disappear?
Who or what is taking the kings?
I'm starting my investigation on the kenai river In the south of alaska.
30 years ago, a fisherman landed a king salmon here That weighed nearly a hundred pounds.
This is the kenai river.
Now, this used to be the place to come And catch king salmon on rod and line
For nominal numbers of fish.
Also, very big fish. The world record came from here.
But the story is that today, they've all but disappeared.
Having said that, there's loads of people here, Almost shoulder to shoulder,
Like a rod-length apart, sometimes less.
And I guess they gotta be catching something.
So I'm gonna go and find out what that is.
The kenai is just a couple of hours drive from anchorage, And it's the most heavily-fished river
In all of alaska.
- How's your day been? - They come in spurts.
Right, you get a bunch, bam, bam, bam, bam, Then nothing.
- Do you fish kings as well? - Not anymore.
The fishing's so bad that I just... So you used to fish.
Yes, I used to fish the rivers for them, But they don't come back like they used to.
Right.
So in its heyday, what was it like?
I caught nine really nice kings in an afternoon.
But now, that's totally unheard of.
Absolutely.
He confirms what I've heard.
This famous salmon river seems to be empty of kings.
But there are other species here.
These fisherman are hauling out sockeye salmon, Which appear to be running strong.
Why have just the kings vanished?
If the problem was an environmental one, Then surely all the salmon species would be affected.
Sockeye salmon are particularly sensitive To any ecological changes,
So I'm hoping the sockeye can shed some light On the health of this river.
It's a bit of a hybrid technique I'm using here.
I'm using a fly rod and reel, but on the end, I've got some lead and a leader about 4 feet long,
Something like that.
And then on the end, quite a heavy bright fly.
Now, no way can I fly-cast with those leads.
What I'm doing, I'm just swinging it out A short distance.
And the idea is that the leads will just bump on the bottom
And the line gets caught in the mouth.
And then this will slide along, And it will hook them on the outside of the mouth.
I've never fished the kenai before, And this is an unfamiliar technique for me,
But it's how most locals catch sockeye here.
Yes!
Surprising, even with the resistance of the rod, It's making headway against the current.
Oh, there it is.
Mind... mind yourself, mind yourself, mind yourself.
And here it is. It's right in here.
Come on.
Wow.
Boy, it's strong, it's strong, it's strong.
There it is.
Whew!
So sockeye salmon. The salmon are running.
As an indicator of clean water, this decent-size sockeye
Looks bright, clear-eyed, and bursting with energy,
Which suggests water quality isn't the problem.
So could something be killing off the king salmon In large numbers?
One predator immediately springs to mind.
A thousand pounds of aggression with an insatiable appetite...
The brown bear is a salmon-eating machine.
I travel across the cook inlet to see if I can find
Any evidence of bears overindulging on king salmon.
I meet up with matthias breiter, An expert in bear behavior.
He's come face-to-face with bears many times In his 30 years of research,
And he's not taking any chances.
It's a marine flare, so it doesn't matter Whether it gets wet.
And you pull it, and it shoots out a flame about this long, Smokes a lot, hisses,
And it lasts about seven minutes.
- Mm-hmm. - And we've used it on bears When they try to get into food caches,
And I've always been able to drive off bears easily with it.
Right.
So I'm not waving my arms around too much, Do you reckon I put a bit of bug spray on my face?
Just... - Oh, yeah, yeah, that's fine.
This place is full of bears, And they're all here for the salmon.
One, two, three, four, five.
Plus five over at that point.
So this is a bay where a river meets the sea.
And at the moment, it's round about high tide.
And the tide is gonna start going out.
And when that happens, there's gonna be... A number of small channels.
And any salmon that are here are likely to get stranded.
So that is what the bears are waiting for.
Bears need to eat up to 30 salmon a day.
If they're to bulk up enough to survive through the winter.
Oh, he's running. This one's running.
He's running, it's running, it's running, it's running.
Fishing has started, I think.
I'm so focused on the action in front of me That I don't see what's coming from behind.
Oh!
I'm in alaska in bear country.
I'm trying to find the famous king salmon, But I'm caught off guard by a male brown bear.
There's a bear coming behind.
Oh!
He'll pretend to be not interested in us, And try to get closer and closer.
Oh, he's actually a good boy. He's walking around us.
- So his fishing time, yeah? - Yeah.
Thankfully, the bears Are far more interested in the fish than us.
So we move closer to find out What kind of salmon they're feeding on.
It's hard to tell for sure, But they don't look big enough to be kings.
Do they go for kings if they're available?
Well, I'm sure they would because the fat content Is even higher.
I've never seen it.
They spawn in water that is just simply too deep For the bears to fish successfully.
And anything deeper than 2 feet, The bears really can't get the fish.
Yes, the kings, they tend to hug The bottom of the deep water, And that's sort of beyond... Yeah.
What the bears can fish in.
Yeah. So if the bears get kings, it's spawned out ones... - Right. - ... That are dying.
Okay, so that's not gonna impact the spawning there.
Of all that I've seen, you know, I'd say the king salmon is the least impacted fish species.
With the king swimming in water that's too deep to reach,
The bears can't be blamed for their disappearance.
But another predator has been hunting king salmon in alaska For thousands of years... people.
I head into the heart of the state To the mighty yukon river, where indigenous people
Have been fishing for kings for 8,000 years.
They'll know king salmon better than anyone, And they will feel the salmon's loss the hardest.
I land in galena, a small remote community
Where the yukon river is an important source of food... In particular, king salmon.
The vehicle's packed up.
I'm not seeing any other vehicles on the road.
I haven't actually seen a person either, Which is a bit odd, but I have been to other places
In the world where people do live... A similar kind of subsistence lifestyle,
And what's going on is a lot of those people, they...
A lot of the time, they are not in the population center.
They are out.
They're on the land or they're on the water.
I'm lucky to find a ride upriver.
I'm guessing everyone is out fishing, Taking advantage of the salmon runs
And stocking up for the winter.
But the river looks deserted.
It should be lined with fishing camps at this time of year.
I stop at a small village called ruby To see if there are any fisherman to speak with.
Hello.
People in the village have told me to talk to billy mccarthy,
And he's down on his boat at the moment.
I believe this is him here.
Hello.
Billy is a native elder who has lived here all his life.
Nice meeting you.
I could remember as a young kid that there were so many fish.
Every fish camp along the river had racks of fish, And there was never a shortage.
And the ruby depends very much on the king salmon.
Right, right. If the king salmon are not here,
What happens to the village? What happens to the people?
Well, of course, there's all sorts of fish out there, but...
The big food... our main food is the king salmon.
They're gonna have a tough time.
It's a serious situation.
Subsistence fisherman only take what they need To feed their families,
Which should protect their precious resource For future generations.
If the subsistence fishermen Are not catching king salmon here,
And if the bears are not eating them, What else could be wiping them out?
Morning.
You starting to pull them in?
- You got something in there? - Oh, yeah.
- Yeah? - Oh, yeah.
Is this sort of a normal catch for a night?
This is a very normal catch for this time of year.
These are predominantly chum.
You dry some of that, you smoke some of that, will you?
Yeah.
Yeah, I'll go and cut some right now if you'd like to see.
Jake tells me he is originally from russia And has been fishing this same spot on the yukon
Every day for the past 24 years.
What is the story right now with the king salmon?
Something is impeding them.
The fish are much smaller and the runs are just smaller.
This is slightly different from what I've been hearing so far.
So the reports that they've gone, I mean, that's a bit of an exaggeration.
They're still here, but you said There is a problem, which is affecting you.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes, absolutely.
Do you worry, given that trend, That they might disappear completely?
Is that a possibility?
I think it's a distinct possibility.
I ask if there are any predators That might be affecting them.
There are lots of pike in the river.
Pike? How big have you seen them?
Somewhere around 50 inches.
Right, about 50. Okay.
There are stories of giant pike.
Of course, pike do terrible things, you know.
I found entire ducks inside and muskrats.
So there's a little bit of kind of superstitious fear.
Pike are ferocious hunters that can grow up to 50 pounds, Possible bigger.
Their mouths are packed with viciously sharp teeth.
Where pike have been introduced, They've been known to decimate established salmon populations.
I'm wondering if that is what has happened here.
Pike hunt in slow water, So I'm staying fairly shallow at the edge of a tributary.
They are predominantly visual hunters, So I'll be using that knowledge to try to catch one.
I'm fishing a very simple lure.
It's just like a metal spoon And that will just flash and wobble.
So it's sending out light and vibrations, So anything predatory that's in the water
Is going to go for this.
Ohh! That's a fish!
Could the answer to the king salmon mystery Be on the end of my line?
There it is. There it is, there it is.
On my mission to discover what has happened To alaska's biggest salmon species,
I've ruled out bears as a potential cause For the king salmon's disappearance.
And now I want to find out if pike could be responsible.
Ohh! That was a hit. Ah, there it is again, There it is again. There it is again.
I'll net this.
Well, there's definitely pike in here.
But I need to find pike bigger than this To be any real threat to the kings.
Let's, uh...
See if there's more.
Pike are well-known cannibals, And if there were giant pike in this area,
They could easily eat these smaller ones.
I cast further out, close to the reeds, To see if a monster could be lurking there.
Yep.
This feels bigger.
Just gotta... Get my feet unstuck and see if I can... see if I can just beach it quickly
Before it has a chance to get off.
It's still not the giant I'm after.
So that's a pike of about three or four pounds.
Lots of teeth.
They're not cutting teeth.
They're for gripping something.
So a fish this size could swallow something Almost its own length.
But normally, it's gonna eat something Just a few inches long.
So I think it would be a serious threat to adult king salmon.
But they might well make inroads into the young salmon On their way down to the sea.
Young salmon can spend up to two years in freshwater Before heading to the ocean.
During this time, they are easy pickings for top predators Such as pike.
But this is true of all salmon species, And it's only the kings that are disappearing.
So this is the yukon. Here's the mouth, the delta.
Historically, the king salmon, They enter the river mouth, the delta here.
They run upstream.
And some of them will be peeling off on route, Going up the side tributaries to spawn.
But some of them will go all the way upstream, all the way, And end up in canada.
Where I am is here, galena.
Now, what they're telling me Is that the kings are showing up here,
But only in a fraction of the numbers that they should be.
Now, what's interesting is no problem With all the other species of salmon.
They are still running strongly.
Now, whatever is causing this decline Is clearly not gonna be happening upstream.
It's gonna be happening somewhere down here.
So this is clearly the direction I need to travel.
I need to go down river.
I head towards the coast where the river empties into the sea.
It's where the ocean-dwelling salmon come back into the river On their way upstream to spawn.
I stop at a fishing port called saint mary's Near the river mouth
To find out if the king salmon are being fished out here
Before they even get a chance to swim upriver.
There is something very incongruous about this place.
You have this wilderness with nobody out there, And you've just got this cluster of buildings.
And it's got a very functional feel to it.
There's a lot of dead machinery sort of lying around, rusting.
But it's also... It's a bit like a ghost town.
There's nobody here.
And, um, believe it or not, This is 10:00 at night.
It's like it's sort of one continuous day.
But I do find some late-night activity down at the docks.
Judging from the rows of containers, This is a fish-buying station,
Where locals can sell their catch.
Could a high commercial demand for kings Be destroying the population?
What have we got in here?
Oh, yeah.
So those are chum.
Are you getting kings as well?
- We don't buy kings. - Oh, you don't buy kings.
So this is all chums here. - Yeah, all chums.
And the reason you're not buying kings at the moment, Why is that? - They're low numbers.
At the moment, it's not enough to... Not enough to fish for, yeah.
Right.
And then the fishing boats start coming in With the day's catch.
Did you find any monsters?
We're hoping you got some in there.
They're all chums, are they?
Yeah.
- What's that? - It's a pike fish.
Like a cisco.
- Is that like a sheefish? - Yeah.
A white fish, but more importantly, lots of chum.
Their numbers are high enough for them to be caught And sold commercially.
Kings aren't being fished for here, Which rules out over-fishing as an immediate cause
For their disappearance.
- Hello. - Hello.
- How are you doing? - I watch your show all the time.
You're jeremy wade, right? - Yes, that's right.
How are you? How are you doing?
I was like, wow, you're out in the yukon.
Hello.
You know, I've heard that the kings' numbers are down.
Yeah, they're pretty low.
So, I mean, does anybody keep a record of the numbers of fish?
I think they do down river, right where the mouths meet.
Yeah.
And then they do it up here where the river narrow.
So there's somewhere... So there's somewhere that way,
And they're somewhere that way where they do it?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
This station, where salmon data gets collected, Is definitely worth a visit.
Here's a treat for you.
But before I leave, I'm offered a local delicacy.
The eggs of the pike fish.
Welcome to the yukon river...
Where fish is abundant and it's the best.
- That tastes... - Very good, huh?
Tastes very fishy.
- Tastes fishy? - Yeah.
Mm. That's just slipped down.
It's an acquired taste for a midnight snack.
Up here where we are so far north that in the summer months,
The sun never truly sets, days merge into each other.
It's not just a figure of speech. It's, uh... There's no... well, there's very little delineation
In the way of darkness.
It just gets a bit dimmer, And then the dimmer switch is turned back up again.
Morning.
It's a new day And time to follow a new lead in this investigation.
I'm hoping the counting station could be the place
For my first encounter with the legendary king salmon.
Up, up, up, up, up, up!
I'm on the yukon river in alaska, Trying to discover what could be taking out
The iconic king salmon.
Yeah, this must be the place.
Ah.
So it looks like we can't go any further.
There's a bit of a sort of barrage put across the river.
Something's going on there.
I wonder if it's all blocked off apart from one channel, and...
They somehow count when they go through.
Oh, there's fish in there.
There's fish actually in here.
You can see their backs sticking out of the water.
So there are fish in here.
Somebody coming down?
Hello?
Ah.
Hello.
- Good to see you. - I'm jeremy.
- Yeah? I'm gerald. - Nice to meet you.
Fish biologist gerald mashman and his crew Work for the u.S. Fish and wildlife service.
Team leader matt larson is going to show me How the station works.
The floating dam, or weir, acts as a barrier Which funnels the fish through a single opening,
Leading to a trap, where they are filmed and counted.
They're chum.
We see quite a bit of them through the weir.
Matt tells me that chums and pinks are common, But even down here near the mouth of the river,
They're seeing very few kings.
We can go check the trap if you want.
- Oh, absolutely. Yeah. - Yeah?
But the summer chum can still be of use To my investigation.
They're second in size to the king salmon, And both chums and kings
Run the same rivers at the same time.
I'm hoping a closer look will offer up some clues
As to why the chums are here in numbers and the kings are not.
Do I pick out an individual fish Or just of make a bit of a lunge and see what I get?
Let's do the lunge.
One there.
That was a complete miss.
So that was me, thinking this was gonna be easy.
Right.
So I've gotta move fairly quickly.
Yeah. So underneath.
And the up. Up, up, up, up, up!
There we go.
The crew take data samples from all species of salmon To track changes over time.
They're measured... Looks like 540. - Yep.
And a scale sample is taken to record their age.
And... The data is sent off to be analyzed, And the results so far is showing no obvious signs
Of disease or environmental harm.
Yet in recent years, The numbers of king salmon running up
The yukon have dropped to as low as 10%
Of what they used to be.
Well, we assess the salmon runs, try and determine,
You know, how many fish are getting upriver to spawn, And what we can do to make sure
That these fish come back year after year after year.
So management is one factor, But there's also other extraneous factors
That might affect the numbers.
Absolutely.
It's, you know, the fish go out to the bering sea
For three, four, five, you know, six, seven years.
We don't know what they're doing out there.
It's a big, black box.
And so all we can do as managers Is manage what comes in the river.
So they are not arriving in the river In significant numbers, simple as that.
And so maybe it's time to turn to the other part Of the king salmon's lifecycle...
That's the five, six, seven years That they spend in the ocean.
Oceans are not my area of expertise, So I contact dr. Jan ohlberger,
Who's studying king salmon in alaska.
He tells me about some brand-new research.
There's an interesting study At the university of alaska fairbanks.
They use satellite tags on king salmon To study their migration and dispersal patterns
In the ocean.
Research has found that half of the tags Recorded some strange numbers.
They jumped from an ocean temperature of 45 degrees
Up to about 70 degrees in a matter of seconds.
This showed that the king salmon, Along with its tag, has been eaten,
Not by a warm-blooded mammal and not by a cold-blooded fish.
But a few fish can partially raise their body temperature, Including salmon sharks.
So based on these data, They've identified salmon sharks
As a potentially important predator harm to king salmon.
Hmm. Now that's really interesting.
Salmon shark, as the name suggests, they eat salmon,
And they are definitely taking some king salmon.
But whether they are targeting the large king salmon,
And whether they are consuming significant numbers of them, I don't know.
But I do know a place that I can go to try and find out.
There is one area of alaska where salmon sharks Have been reported to congregate in the thousands
For a mass salmon feeding frenzy.
Ah, yes!
Brand-new evidence linked to the disappearance Of the king salmon suggests
That salmon sharks are an important predator.
But do the numbers stack up?
Do there seem to be enough of them in the water
To significantly make an impact on the king salmon populations?
With a top speed of 50 miles an hour, The salmon shark is a faster and more agile relative
Of the great white.
I investigated salmon sharks a few years ago, And I've caught up with boone hodgin,
A salmon shark expert in prince william sound.
The sharks congregate in this area, Waiting to ambush the migrating salmon
As they travel from the ocean into the rivers.
And since it's salmon-running season, The sharks should be here right now.
I'm going to drop a line in the water To see what's down there.
I prepare myself for battle.
Anticipation tinged almost with a bit of dread.
There are certain fish, they're just so powerful
That you almost don't want to be in contact with them.
If it's a prolonged fight, then it sort of just takes
Some of the strain off of my back and my arms.
I almost want to be looking back on today, As long as today's a successful day,
But I have to actually go through the process Of living today first.
It will be fun, as well, if/when it happens.
But it's gonna be... Mixed in with some pain, I think.
I'm gonna slap this around your waist... - Yep. - ... As a secondary line.
Just in case you slip out, we can reel you back in.
- Okay. - With shark and all.
Down it goes.
10... 20... At this time of year, the salmon sharks could be Anywhere from 20 to 200 feet deep.
What I've been told to expect Is either this will just get slammed down with no warning
Or there will be a slow, steady increase in tension.
And either one of those two things could happen At any moment.
Or several hours could pass Without anything happening at all.
This is the... The interesting frozen moment that you get stuck in In this kind of...
This type of situation.
I keep the bait moving to attract attention.
Lift it up... Drop it down.
I thought I felt a bump.
But the bait hasn't been touched.
80... 90.
Lift it up, drop it down.
I try different depths... I'm trying a little bit shallower.
100 feet down.
And multiple locations.
I'm starting to wonder if the sharks are here at all.
So two days on the water, full days, long days, And not a single sign of a salmon shark.
Not a fin on the surface, And nothing on the sonar, either.
Which leaves me very... Surprised, puzzled.
In my investigations so far, the salmon shark Seems to be the most plausible explanation
For the disappearing king salmon.
But if I can't find any sharks, that theory is blown.
Maybe I've missed the salmon runs, And the sharks have already gone.
The next day, I decide to switch strategy and equipment To check the salmon are still here.
Yes.
Don't think this is a salmon.
Oh!
Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Coho. Coho.
It is a coho.
Ah, it's off!
A long enough glimpse of it to see what it was.
That was it... that was a nice coho salmon.
Here we go.
Coming up to the surface. Oh, there it is.
There it is.
This feels maybe a better size.
Oh, look at that.
Oh!
And jumping again.
God, this one's lively.
This one's lively.
Coho, also known as silvers, are smaller than the kings.
Look at this.
Has this one suffered a shark attack?
It's thick tooth, so it's not a shark.
Yeah.
More like a sea lion tried to grab it.
There we go.
Yes.
- Gosh. - It's a nice one.
It is, yeah.
All right, I'm gonna let this tire out.
There we go.
Look at the coloration on the gill flap.
It's beautiful. Such a beautiful fish.
And, of course, they change so dramatically, don't they?
Once they're in the... once they hit the freshwater.
The coho are running, but no kings.
And no evidence of salmon sharks Hunting them down.
So while it's known that salmon sharks do feed on kings,
I don't believe the sharks can be the cause Of the king salmon's sudden disappearance.
Then boone shows me something interesting.
That's an orca.
Is that off the back of your boat?
It is. - When was this?
- This was a few weeks ago. - Are they still around?
Boone says he's seen the number of resident fish-eating orca,
Or killer whales, rapidly increasing lately.
Bigger and smarter than sharks, These apex predators could do serious damage
To any fish population if they got a taste for it.
But are there enough orca here, And have they developed a preference
For king salmon above all other fish?
- Go find some orcas? - Yes, absolutely.
I scan the horizon for the distinctive 6-foot-high black dorsal fin And the telltale plume of air
As the orca breaks the surface to breathe.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
I'm looking for orca in the waters off alaska
To try to see if they're connected to the disappearance Of the king salmon.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
I think they must have come out of the water.
And again, look at that! Look at that! Look at that!
It's like they're putting on a show for us.
It really is like they're putting on a show.
Wow.
These astounding creatures are the true rulers of the ocean.
To power their huge bulk takes a lot of energy.
But are the kings, the biggest of the salmon species, Their fuel?
This doesn't look like predatory behavior.
At the moment, they just appear to be having fun with us.
They are approaching the boat.
We're sitting here with the motor idling, And they're coming very slowly towards us.
It's almost like they are curious.
This is wonderful.
I see it through the water.
Through the water.
Diving down, coming right across our stern.
They may not be hunting right now, But they certainly are here in surprising numbers.
Suddenly, there is the impression That this water is full of them.
And so the numbers here...
Are starting to make sense.
There we go. That was a selfie with an orca.
How often do you get that?
If these orca really do feed on kings, There's a chance the salmon could be here right now.
Once I'm sure the orca have long gone, I try my luck... But catch nothing.
I'm certain I'm onto something with the orca, But I still need definitive proof...
Something that links them to the king salmon.
I track down john maniscalco, Who has apparently witnessed orca actively hunting.
One time, just right off the corner of my boat, This king salmon leaps out of the water
Right towards the boat, dives down.
And this killer whale just does the same arcing leap Right after it.
Dives right under the boat, right after this king salmon.
Huge salmon.
I don't know if it eventually got that salmon, But I bet it did.
So it was right behind it?
It was hot on its trail, yeah.
Do you have any way of saying what particular fish They might be going for?
Oh, sure.
The studies that some of the guys Have been doing around here, They'll pick up some of the scales
And some of the other tissue from the fish
That the killer whales kill, and determine that they feed Mainly on the king salmon around here.
Right. It's a big, warm-blooded animal.
Probably has to get through quite a lot of king salmon Just to keep itself going.
Yeah, a lot of calories there, yeah.
So, you know, that's why think they target the bigger fish.
And the king salmon, they're the biggest Of the salmon that we have round here.
And they'll target the big ones.
So orca are going after king salmon in these waters.
But are they behind the king's disappearance?
It's possible. That's really hard to say.
You know, a lot of things feed on king salmon, Including humans out here. - Yeah.
Yeah, so, you know, with the increased population
Of killer whales around here, that they think that...
Some of the researchers think that they are making
More of a significant dent in the king salmon population.
It definitely sounds like They're targeting king salmon, Because, well... and why wouldn't they?
They're very tasty, but also very rich food.
However, they're not all of the picture.
There's lot of other factors.
The fact that resident orca numbers off alaska Have been on the increase,
When other orca populations are declining, Is a critical element in this mystery.
Has this orca boom been at the expense of the kings?
Given the dynamic nature of predator/prey relationships,
Perhaps it's not possible for king salmon And the orca to flourish at the same time.
The question is, Does this spell the end for alaskan king salmon?
I need to find out if enough kings are escaping the orca To return to the rivers and to spawn.
So far, I've seen the other four species of salmon, But not a single king,
But I'm convinced I'm getting close.
I team up with the alaskan department of fish and game, Who are also searching for kings
At the mouths of the rivers.
Anything happening today so far?
We've been picking up a couple sockeye, But we haven't picked up any kings yet.
Right.
And we're about to pull it right now.
Okay.
This one's a sockeye.
- You release those guys. - Yeah.
So you're only interested in the kings.
- Exactly. - Yeah.
Feels like there might be something... There we go.
Is that a sockeye? - Yep.
Right.
But it's just sockeye after sockeye.
So still no kings today. Hmm.
With each net pull, it's looking less and less hopeful.
Ah, look at that. Look at that, look at that.
Finally, a king salmon.
It's all right, it's okay.
It's survival is so important That I dare not even remove it from the water.
So here we have it. This is an alaskan king salmon.
This would be about a 28-pounder.
Very nice-size fish, but these things potentially grow A lot bigger than that.
And this is fresh from the sea, it's bright silver.
As it progresses upriver, it will gradually change.
I was starting to think that I might never see a king salmon.
My investigation has made me realize that Throughout their lifecycle,
The kings are constantly hunted, In the early days, by pike, then by humans,
Salmon sharks, and orca... each one taking their fill.
Perhaps there's no single cause for their decline, But instead a perfect storm of factors
That has brought this iconic species To the brink of collapse.
But this shimmering, full-bodied fish Is evidence that the kings are not lost.
And as long as there are still some left To journey upriver and breed...
Off we go. It's fantastic.
And it's going the right way... upriver.
The kings will one day rule again.