Crew members push pink salmon into the boat's storage area. Crew members refer to this maneuver as the 'fish walk' when they slide across a boat's deck to push pink salmon into the ice storage area. The fishermen were seining in the waters in Southeast Alaska. Alaska’s fisheries are some of the richest in the world, with fishermen harvesting hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of salmon, crab, herring, halibut, pollock, and groundfish every year. However, overfishing, exploitation, and poor fisheries management in the ‘40s and ‘50s took a heavy toll on the industry. The state adopted drastic measures that saved the fishing industry from collapse. Tough times again hit the fishermen in the 1970s as the number of boats grew and increasingly efficient gear depleted catch levels to record lows. Permit systems and reserves helped the commercial industry recover in the late ‘70s—a trend that has continued to the present because of cooperation between scientists and fishermen; Alaska, United States of America