Pink Salmon

The annual Alaska pink salmon run is one of the earth's great events. This species of fish, which has a two-year life cycle, is the most common of Alaska's salmon species. Millions of salmon fight to get to the streams where they hatched. Many don't make it. Bears and humans eagerly take their share.

In Chatham Strait near the southern trip of Admiralty Island, a purse seiner hauls in a catch of hundreds of salmon.

Once the salmon has spawned, it dies. Here a carcass rots along a stream at Pleasant Bay on Admiralty Island. Gulls and eagles feast on these remains.

A dead, spawned out salmon rots in the waters of Pack Creek.