# Redoubt Weir. Lit To Install, Dark To Run > Solar panels and a Starlink system on a lagoon float run an AI salmon counter at Redoubt Lake, 15 miles by boat from Sitka. Published 2026-08-08 by Alaska AI. 9 slides. Canonical: https://alaskaaihq.com/archive/2026-08-08/ ## The story "The system is not broken. That's the problem." One camera. One chute. One fish at a time. This number sets a household's legal limit. The power and the uplink float on top. $200,000 paid to install it. Once. Grant money lights damage. What this weir has actually measured. Nobody has published a count of the counter. A working instrument with no line item. ## What we verified - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed a fiscal year 2024 Tribal Wildlife Grant to the Sitka Tribe of Alaska titled "Artificial Intelligence for Subsistence Salmon Monitoring and Management". [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service](https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-10/service-awards-more-64-million-tribal-wildlife-grants-advance-shared), primary document, 2024-10-16. - The Redoubt Lake weir was installed on June 14th, 2026 for the 2026 season. [Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/EONR/index.cfm?ADFG=region.NR&Year=2026&NRID=4070), primary document, 2026-06-30. - The weir had counted 7,791 sockeye salmon by June 29th, 2026. [Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/EONR/index.cfm?ADFG=region.NR&Year=2026&NRID=4070), primary document, 2026-06-30. - The department said projected escapement for the 2026 Redoubt season exceeds 40,000 sockeye salmon. [Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/EONR/index.cfm?ADFG=region.NR&Year=2026&NRID=4070), primary document, 2026-06-30. - Salmon Vision reports a mean average precision of 80.2 percent for its detection model. [Salmon Vision Collaborative](https://salmonvision.org/), primary document, 2026-08-08. - Salmon Vision reports detecting 6 salmon species among 17 total species. [Salmon Vision Collaborative](https://salmonvision.org/), primary document, 2026-08-08. - Salmon Vision reports its models were trained on over 5 million annotated frames. [Salmon Vision Collaborative](https://salmonvision.org/), primary document, 2026-08-08. - Salmon Vision publishes its model code under an MIT open research license and its data and annotations under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. [Salmon Vision Collaborative](https://salmonvision.org/about/), primary document, 2026-08-08. - Salmon Vision describes itself as a collaborative effort by the Pacific Salmon Foundation, Wild Salmon Center, Simon Fraser University computing sciences and Lumax Ecological Analytics. [Salmon Vision Collaborative](https://salmonvision.org/about/), primary document, 2026-08-08. - Salmon Vision lists the Sitka Tribe of Alaska among its partners, alongside the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. [Salmon Vision Collaborative](https://salmonvision.org/), primary document, 2026-08-08. - That Tribal Wildlife Grant to the Sitka Tribe of Alaska was $200,000. [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service](https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-10/service-awards-more-64-million-tribal-wildlife-grants-advance-shared), primary document, 2024-10-16. - The Service described the award as paying to install artificial intelligence enabled video producing automated real time counts of Redoubt Lake sockeye salmon and reducing real time monitoring costs. [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service](https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-10/service-awards-more-64-million-tribal-wildlife-grants-advance-shared), primary document, 2024-10-16. - The Service's Alaska release said the Sitka Tribe of Alaska would partner with the Wild Salmon Center and the U.S. Forest Service to install the AI enabled video chutes. [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service](https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-10/us-fish-wildlife-service-awards-more-13-million-tribal-wildlife-grants-alaska), primary document, 2024-10-17. - The Service said it was awarding more than $1.3 million in Tribal Wildlife Grants to federally recognized Tribes in Alaska in that round. [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service](https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-10/us-fish-wildlife-service-awards-more-13-million-tribal-wildlife-grants-alaska), primary document, 2024-10-17. - The Alaska Department of Fish and Game raised the annual subsistence limit for Redoubt Bay and Lake sockeye salmon to 100 fish per individual or household. [Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/EONR/index.cfm?ADFG=region.NR&Year=2026&NRID=4070), primary document, 2026-06-30. - The same emergency order set the Redoubt subsistence possession limit at 25 sockeye salmon per individual or household. [Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/EONR/index.cfm?ADFG=region.NR&Year=2026&NRID=4070), primary document, 2026-06-30. - The same order set the Redoubt sport bag and possession limit at 6 sockeye salmon. [Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/EONR/index.cfm?ADFG=region.NR&Year=2026&NRID=4070), primary document, 2026-06-30. - The liberalized Redoubt limits took effect at 12:01 a.m. on July 1st, 2026. [Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/EONR/index.cfm?ADFG=region.NR&Year=2026&NRID=4070), primary document, 2026-06-30. - Jeff Feldpausch, resource protection director for the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, said there is no funding for the weir right now. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Feldpausch said the Tribe looked high and low for grant sources and all of them deal with systems that need remediation. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Feldpausch said there is lots of money to fix and monitor broken systems but no regular funding for a system that is not broken. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Feldpausch said the computer has learned to count sockeye and the program has reached about a 95 percent confidence interval on counting sockeye through the system. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Feldpausch said a commercial fishery is now taking place at Redoubt that would not happen if the weir were not in place. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Feldpausch said harvesters can now take up to 100 sockeye a year, up from 50, and that this would not have happened without the weir. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Feldpausch said conflicts between people and bears are emerging because bears cannot fish the weir pool away from where people fish in the saltwater. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Feldpausch said runs at Redoubt were significantly depressed in the early 1980s with around 800 sockeye returning. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - KCAW described the Redoubt setup as a white polyethylene plastic chute with a video camera on the side, with a float in the lagoon carrying battery packs, solar panels and a Starlink system. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - KCAW reported that data from the Redoubt system is uploaded online immediately and is accessible from the Tribe's office in Sitka. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Redoubt Falls is a 15 mile boat ride from downtown Sitka. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - KCAW identified the Redoubt counting system as coming from the British Columbia based company SalmonVision. [KCAW Raven Radio, reporting by Hope McKenney](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-05. - Technicians counted nearly 229,000 sockeye entering Redoubt Lake while operating the weir from mid June to late July of 2025. [Ketchikan Daily News, reprinting Anna Laffrey of the Daily Sitka Sentinel](https://www.ketchikandailynews.com/news/waterfront/redoubt-lake-sockeye-salmon-boom-spurs-study/article_0152260b-191c-486b-b905-4690f2b77baa.html), report, 2025-10-25. - Redoubt weir counts were 153,406 fish in 2023 and 210,253 in 2024 according to U.S. Forest Service reports. [Ketchikan Daily News, reprinting Anna Laffrey of the Daily Sitka Sentinel](https://www.ketchikandailynews.com/news/waterfront/redoubt-lake-sockeye-salmon-boom-spurs-study/article_0152260b-191c-486b-b905-4690f2b77baa.html), report, 2025-10-25. - A researcher found that about 35 percent of all subsistence sockeye harvest in Southeast Alaska happens at Redoubt, based on unpublished Forest Service and Fish and Game data. [Ketchikan Daily News, reprinting Anna Laffrey of the Daily Sitka Sentinel](https://www.ketchikandailynews.com/news/waterfront/redoubt-lake-sockeye-salmon-boom-spurs-study/article_0152260b-191c-486b-b905-4690f2b77baa.html), report, 2025-10-25. - The AI camera system at Redoubt captured 2,600 video clips in two and a half weeks during 2025. [Ketchikan Daily News, reprinting Anna Laffrey of the Daily Sitka Sentinel](https://www.ketchikandailynews.com/news/waterfront/redoubt-lake-sockeye-salmon-boom-spurs-study/article_0152260b-191c-486b-b905-4690f2b77baa.html), report, 2025-10-25. - Sitka Tribe technicians installed the AI equipment at Redoubt in August 2025 and it was reported as the first in-stream artificial intelligence fish count in Alaska. [Ketchikan Daily News, reprinting Anna Laffrey of the Daily Sitka Sentinel](https://www.ketchikandailynews.com/news/waterfront/redoubt-lake-sockeye-salmon-boom-spurs-study/article_0152260b-191c-486b-b905-4690f2b77baa.html), report, 2025-10-25. - Seiners caught about 130,000 sockeye at Redoubt in 2025, the largest commercial harvest there since at least 1985. [Ketchikan Daily News, reprinting Anna Laffrey of the Daily Sitka Sentinel](https://www.ketchikandailynews.com/news/waterfront/redoubt-lake-sockeye-salmon-boom-spurs-study/article_0152260b-191c-486b-b905-4690f2b77baa.html), report, 2025-10-25. - The U.S. Forest Service and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska issued a joint bear warning for Redoubt Falls on July 30th, 2026, saying several brown bears including two sows with cubs were frequenting the weir. [KCAW Raven Radio](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/07/31/public-urged-to-be-bear-aware-at-redoubt-falls/), report, 2026-07-31. - No published head to head validation of the Redoubt AI counts against hand counts was found on any of the pages fetched for this run. [Alaska.Ai verification note against KCAW Raven Radio, Salmon Vision, ADF and G and USFWS pages](https://www.kcaw.org/2026/08/05/theres-no-funding-for-the-weir-right-now-sitka-tribe-of-alaska-introduces-ai-monitoring-at-redoubt/), report, 2026-08-08. Slides and the deck PDF are linked from the canonical page.