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Nushagak Bay is a large estuary covering over 100 km2 in southwest part of the 
Bristol Bay residents have historically valued the estuary resources for both subsistence gains and commercial profits. However, given the estuary's importance, there have been few comprehensive scientific studies conducted in the bay. Species diversity as measured through richness and total biomass is generally low with 16 macro invertebrate species encountered in a 2007 field study, including teleost fishes, isopods, amphipods, and crangon shrimps. During the summer 2007, Nushagak Bay was found to have a Shannon Diversity (H’) value of 1.54, ranking it below similar subarctic estuaries such as Ungava Bay, near Labrador (60°34’N, 67°35’W) and Lower Herring Bay in Price William Sound (60°30’N, 147°13’W) where the Shannon Diversity values are H’=2.11 and H’=2.5, respectively. This lower diversity of Nushagak Bay is most likely due to its low salinity, high turbidity, and silty sediments.
Nushagak Bay is downstream of the proposed
Photos from the RegionPebble Mine environmental information
Bays of Alaska Bodies of water of Dillingham Census Area, Alaska {{DillinghamAK-geo-stub
Nushagak Bay is a large estuary covering over 100 km2 in southwest part of the U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its s ...
of Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U. ...
. It opens to Bristol Bay
Bristol Bay ( esu, Iilgayaq, russian: Залив Бристольский) is the easternmost arm of the Bering Sea, at 57° to 59° North 157° to 162° West in Southwest Alaska. Bristol Bay is 400 km (250 mi) long and 290 km, ...
, a large body of water in the eastern Bering Sea
The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The ...
north of the Alaska Peninsula
The Alaska Peninsula (also called Aleut Peninsula or Aleutian Peninsula, ale, Alasxix̂; Sugpiaq: ''Aluuwiq'', ''Al'uwiq'') is a peninsula extending about to the southwest from the mainland of Alaska and ending in the Aleutian Islands. The p ...
.
It is home to the area's largest city, Dillingham, and the bay hosts one of the world's last great sustainable sockeye salmon
The sockeye salmon (''Oncorhynchus nerka''), also called red salmon, kokanee salmon, blueback salmon, or simply sockeye, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Northern Pacific Ocean and rivers discharging into it. This species is a ...
fisheries.
Bristol Bay residents have historically valued the estuary resources for both subsistence gains and commercial profits. However, given the estuary's importance, there have been few comprehensive scientific studies conducted in the bay. Species diversity as measured through richness and total biomass is generally low with 16 macro invertebrate species encountered in a 2007 field study, including teleost fishes, isopods, amphipods, and crangon shrimps. During the summer 2007, Nushagak Bay was found to have a Shannon Diversity (H’) value of 1.54, ranking it below similar subarctic estuaries such as Ungava Bay, near Labrador (60°34’N, 67°35’W) and Lower Herring Bay in Price William Sound (60°30’N, 147°13’W) where the Shannon Diversity values are H’=2.11 and H’=2.5, respectively. This lower diversity of Nushagak Bay is most likely due to its low salinity, high turbidity, and silty sediments.
Nushagak Bay is downstream of the proposed Pebble Mine
Pebble Mine is the common name of a proposed copper-gold-molybdenum mining project in the Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska, near Lake Iliamna and Lake Clark. As of November 2020 the mine developer, Northern Dynasty Minerals, was seeking ...
, whose tailings storage lake would sit at the headwaters of the Koktuli River, one of the Nushagak River's tributaries. Villages on the Nushagak are among the major opponents of the proposal.
The bay runs primarily north–south from the mouth of the Nushagak River to Bristol Bay some 30 miles (48 km) southward. The bay is also fed by several additional rivers, including the Wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
, Igushik, and Snake
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more ...
rivers.
References
External links
Photos from the Region
Bays of Alaska Bodies of water of Dillingham Census Area, Alaska {{DillinghamAK-geo-stub