The Alaska Department of Fish & Game is slated to receive another funding boost as part of Governor Mike Dunleavy’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026. Part of that potential money will support research for crashing Chinook salmon stocks.
Last fiscal year, FY'2025, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game had an operating budget of $253.5 million. That was out of an overall $12.2 billion statewide operating budget.
Governor Mike Dunleavy has proposed giving Fish & Game $14 million more this upcoming fiscal year. If enacted, this would be at least the third consecutive year that the department has seen a $10 million or more year-over-year funding increase. FY'2025’s amount was already up from roughly $243.5 in FY 2024 and $233 million the year prior.
Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang told KMXT back in July that he expected an increase in funding for his department in the upcoming budget cycle.
“So I think there’s going to be a push for federal and state money to better address what’s happening to Chinook salmon, in the next year’s budget. I just don’t know what that is yet because we are still putting it together," Vincent-Lang said.
The potential funding also comes with a boost for salmon research.
Dunleavy’s budget proposal, released last month on Dec. 12, also includes $5.6 million to initiate a Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon marine harvest five-year study. A total of nearly $22 million would be spread across fiscal year 2026 through fiscal year 2030 to fund ADF&G’s efforts, “to sample, assess, analyze, and report the stock composition of Chinook salmon harvested across the Gulf of Alaska.”
Chinook salmon, also known as kings, have seen significant declines in recent years, across many areas of the state. On Kodiak Island for example, the Karluk River saw the lowest king counts in recorded history with less than 80 fish coming through the weir this summer according to data from ADF&G.
The governor’s proposed budget also includes $4 million dollars over five years, $800,000 starting in FY'2026, to continue the Alaska Marine Salmon Program, run by the University of Washington, to research the evolution of Pacific salmon across Alaska. Other budget items listed as appropriations in Dunleavy’s FY2026 Capital Budget proposal include the “Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund,” and the “Pacific Salmon Treaty Chinook Fishery Mitigation.”
Dunleavy’s FY'2026 budget proposal is just an initial proposal. The final budget is likely to change between now and when it’s enacted at the end of this year’s legislative session.
