Bristol Bay has the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery. The 

 other four species of Pacific salmon are also abundant and tanner crab 

 and king crab are commercially important. 



The coastal lagoons support one of the densest populations of 

 waterbirds in the world. Nesting seabirds such as kittiwakes, guillemots, 

 murres, gulls, auklets, and puffins comprise the largest seabird rookeries. 



Marine mammals of the Bristol Bay coast are diverse and numerous . 

 The Steller sea lion occurs all along the rocky coast of outer Bristol 

 Bay, while the harbor seal prefers the gentler slopes and sandy beaches. 

 The formerly endangered sea otter is common along southern Bristol Bay, 

 especially close to shore near kelp beds. 



Some twenty villages and small towns are situated along the shores 

 of Bristol Bay. Half of the region's population lives in the Bristol 

 Bay Borough (Naknek, King Salmon, and South Nakned) and in Dillingham. 

 The population is two-thirds native of which some 60 percent is Eskimo. 

 The majority of the non-native population is located around the Air 

 Force Base at King Salmon. Outside the main population centers, which 

 are important hubs of transportation and communication, the economy is 

 based on fishing, hunting, and trapping. 



Petroleum Resources 



In Interior's 1974 industry-wide survey of frontier leasing areas, 

 Bristol Bay ranked fourth in potential production behind the Gulf of 

 Alaska, central Gulf of Mexico and Beaufort Sea. 113 The oil industry, 

 however, had little more than coarse grid seismic information upon which 



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