A Beautiful Bay The call for permanent protection continues in
Alaska’s Bristol Bay, where offshore drilling threatens wildlife
and a way of life. by Dan Strickland © William H. Mullins /
Accent Alaska The sockeye salmon breaking the surface in flashes
of silver look like giant popping kernels of corn. It’s July and
the fish are leaping upstream in the millions to spawn in the
Bering Sea’s Bristol Bay, off the coast of southwest Alaska.
With the run at its peak, anyone wading in hip boots here can
feel the fish hitting and careening off both legs. These
sockeye—along with Chinook, halibut, pollock, cod and crab—make
Bristol Bay one of the most productive, unspoiled wild fisheries
on Earth. Almost half of the seafood harvested in U.S. waters
comes from here, generating more than $2 billion a year and
supporting fishermen throughout Alaska and down the West Coast.
Bristol Bay also provides vital habitat for hundreds of other
fish species, dozens of marine mammal species—including
threatened northern sea otters,