Pink salmon bound for British Columbia's Fraser River are moving through local waters by the millions this year, providing some welcome income for fishing vessel owners, processors and their workers.

Doug Thomas, president and CEO at Bellingham Cold Storage, said his company and the processing firms who rent space in its facilities have been busy hiring workers for the 24-hour-a-day job of getting the fish unloaded, cleaned and frozen.

"There's well over 1,000 people who are working on the salmon operation," Thomas said.

Thomas said most fishermen sell their catch to tender vessels operated by processing companies, enabling them to stay on the fishing grounds instead of returning to port to unload. But when the fishing periods set by the binational Pacific Salmon Commission end, the fishing vessels often bring the last load to the processors themselves, enabling them to get a few pennies more per pound.

At the processors' dock, the workers use pumps to unload the fish from fishing boats and tenders. Then the fish are headed, gutted, washed, frozen and glazed.

Thomas credited the salmon commission for its adroit management of a complex natural resource, maintaining healthy salmon runs to the Fraser River at a time when many salmon runs are in trouble. The commission estimates the size of this year's Fraser River pink run at 17 million fish, although the actual number won't be known until the run is complete in the next few weeks.

Pink and sockeye salmon that originate in the Fraser were a vital food source for the Coast Salish peoples who were the region's first inhabitants. They later became the foundation of the Whatcom County fishing industry. A century ago, floating traps intercepted Fraser-bound fish by the millions to supply massive canneries at Point Roberts, Semiahmoo Spit and Fairhaven.

Today, under the terms of a treaty with Canada, U.S. fishers remain entitled to intercept a share of the Canadian-origin fish as they pass through U.S. waters. Some of the hottest fishing grounds for U.S. vessels lie off Point Roberts and the Salmon Banks area south of San Juan Island.

Lummi Island is home to reef netters who set up stationary gear to capture the fish as they move along the west side of the island.

Working in cooperation with state, federal and tribal governments, the commission staffers use test fisheries and other methods to estimate the size of the salmon run. Then biologists determine how many salmon must be allowed to escape upriver to the spawning grounds to ensure a flourishing salmon harvest two years from now.

Pink salmon take just two years to reach maturity, and the big Fraser runs occur in odd-numbered years.

The reefnetters and purse seiners are the main beneficiaries of the pink salmon bounty. Gillnet fishers say the fish are harder to catch in their gear, either because they swim too slowly to get tangled in gill nets, or because they can see the nets better than other salmon. In any event, Lummi Nation gill netter Vernon Lane Jr. said, the pink salmon is a lower-value fish that makes less economic sense to the operator of a smaller gillnet boat.

"They are not really profitable for the gillnetters," Lane said. "We have to fill our boat up, because of the price. The purse seiners can haul 'em in real good."

Two years ago, the pinks, sometimes referred to as "humpies," also returned in large numbers - so large that processors had difficulty managing it all, and the price was low.

This year, thanks to strong demand for the fish in overseas markets, the price paid to fishermen has been attractive: close to 50 cents per pound. That's high enough to entice more gillnetters into the harvest.

"That's a price we haven't seen for a long time," gillnetter Milan Slipcevic said.

Slipcevic has been fishing in Ketchikan, Alaska, but he plans to bring his boat back to Whatcom County in time to get in on the final week or two of the pink salmon harvest.

"There are a lot of fish still coming," Slipcevic said.

Mike Dodd, who operates Blaine Marina Inc. and buys fish, said he hopes that's true.

"Until you see them in the bucket you just don't know," Dodd said.