Saving Seafood

Processor executives and biologists consider what smaller fish mean for Bristol Bay

August 6, 2021 — The average Bristol Bay sockeye this year is smaller. That’s part of a trend over the past four decades, as increasingly smaller fish have returned to the bay amid larger salmon runs and warming oceans. Processor executives and biologists now have to consider what smaller fish mean for Bristol Bay.

Bristol Bay is home to the largest sockeye run on the planet. But while the size of the run broke records, the fish are getting smaller.

Last year’s average weight for sockeye was 5.1 pounds. But the 2021 average was just 4.5 pounds, according to the McKinley Research Group.

Jon Hickman is the executive vice president of operations for Peter Pan Seafoods. He says the smaller fish play a role in how much time processors spend processing.

“Smaller fish are going to take longer to process,” he said. “So you’re handling a 4 pound fish or a 3 pound fish, as opposed to a 5 pound fish so every time you handle one there’s a two pound difference. There’s more labor going into those smaller fish. You get more labor into them, there’s more costs associated with those smaller fish.”

Hickman says he isn’t worried about how the smaller fish will play in Peter Pan’s markets — demand is good, and he’s comfortable with the market for fish big and small.

Read the full story at KDLG

Alaska salmon returns down 87 percent, as Bristol Bay sockeye harvest soars

July 16, 2021 — It’s catch as catch can in Alaska salmon fisheries with five of six species still lagging behind normal across the region. Bristol Bay and the rest of Southwest Alaska continue to be a bright spot for the second year running, but not across all species.

As of mid-July, 72 percent of the state’s projected sockeye harvest had been caught, while just 23 percent of the projected overall salmon harvest of 190 million fish has crossed the docks, according to McKinley Research Group’s weekly report for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Bristol Bay’s Nushagak District topped 1 million fish per day for seven consecutive days and edged the 2 million mark several times, and the boom harvest has since spread out to other rivers across the bay. The only damper on yet another year with strong sockeye returns is a smaller average fish size at 4.5 pounds, compared with 5.1 last year.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

KRISTIN CARPENTER: Salmon hatcheries add resilience to Alaska’s seafood industry

July 16, 2021 — This past year hasn’t been an easy one. The impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are widespread, affecting the ability of Alaskans to support their families in the same way they did before. With tourism shut down in 2020 and fluctuations in the price of oil and the ever-mounting threat of climate change on our daily lives, it’s no wonder Alaskans are deeply concerned about the state’s economy. But here in 2021, we are in a better spot than we were a year ago, and there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. One component of the state’s economy has served as a consistent economic driver throughout last year’s trials and will continue to do so far into the future — Alaska’s salmon hatcheries.

Seafood, tourism, and oil & gas make up the three-legged stool of our economy, according to economic models. Our seafood sector has been able to thrive through the pandemic, thanks partly to the long-term and sustainable production of the salmon hatcheries established in Alaska in the 1970s. Across the state, the seafood industry employs almost 60,000 workers, nearly half of whom are Alaska residents, and it contributed more than $172 million in 2019 in raw fish taxes for state and local governments. The economic benefits generated by the seafood industry ripple across the state, and from Prince William Sound across Southcentral Alaska, raising incomes and lowering the cost of living in many communities, not to mention increasing food security. Harvests from Prince William Sound specifically make up more than half of the state’s ex-vessel value from hatchery-raised fish harvests — $69 million out of a total of $120 million. Our Alaska salmon hatcheries contribute 1 billion meals of nutritious Alaskan salmon to Alaska and the world annually.

Even those without direct ties to seafood can look to hatcheries as drivers of economic opportunity. A recent report by McKinley Research Group — formerly McDowell Group — highlights the impacts that hatcheries have on economic outcomes throughout Alaska. Each year, Alaska hatcheries account for roughly 4,700 jobs, $218 million in labor income, and a total of $600 million in economic output. In Prince William Sound alone, hatcheries generate roughly 2,200 jobs, $104 million in labor income, and a total economic output of $316 million each year. Hatcheries drive economic impacts far beyond direct labor and income by benefiting thousands of fishermen, processing employees, and hatchery workers, not to mention thousands more support sector workers, and even sportfish charter operators and guides, who likely rely on hatchery production for some portion of their income.

It’s hard to overstate the far-reaching impacts of Alaska’s hatcheries, especially when it comes to additional tax revenue. Hatcheries and the fish they produce generate local revenue through taxes on raw fish, property, and sales paid by commercial and charter fishermen, seafood processors, hatchery associations, and support sector businesses and employees. These tax revenues help Alaskan communities to survive in the challenging years and thrive in the good years across the state.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

How to track salmon catches and market trends for every region of Alaska

June 8, 2021 — Buyers are awaiting Alaska salmon from fisheries that are opening almost daily across the state, and it’s easy to track catches and market trends for every region.

Fishery managers forecast a statewide catch topping 190 million salmon this year, 61% higher than the 2020 take of just over 118 million. But globally, the supply of wild salmon is expected to be down amid increased demand.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2021 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2020 Season provides breakdowns for all species by region.

And salmon catches are updated daily at Fish and Game’s Blue Sheet, found at its commercial fisheries web page. They also post weekly summaries of harvests broken out by every region along with comparisons to past years.

Predictions for the 2021 mix of fish call for a catch of 269,000 Chinook salmon, up slightly from 2020 but 25% below the 10-year average.

The projected sockeye harvest of 46.6 million will help replenish low inventories that saw strong export prices in early 2021 and “a continued promising market,” said Dan Lesh, a fisheries economist with the McKinley Research Group who compiles weekly updates during the season for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Northern Lights: The covid trail

June 7, 2021 — America’s largest seafood producing state kept working through the covid-19 pandemic, but under difficult and constantly changing conditions. Seafood consumers were unable to eat out but became hungrier than ever for everything from king crab to Alaska pollock fish sticks to canned salmon. For at least nine months retail seafood sales were up 20-30 percent above pre-pandemic levels — a higher sales bump than all other parts of the grocery store. Those increases tell the story of high demand, but also of the hard work and sacrifice that kept boats fishing, processing lines operating, and shippers moving products to where they were needed.

To better understand how covid-19 is affecting the industry, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute commissioned McKinley Research Group (formerly known as McDowell Group) to produce a series of surveys and briefing papers.

Mitigation and Response Costs

Fortunately, Alaska’s winter/spring Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands fisheries were already underway when covid hit in early 2020, limiting initial impacts in those massive fisheries. Heading into the peak summer salmon season, processors and harvesters scrambled to set up new protocols and spent heavily to protect workers and communities. Sporadic outbreaks occurred, but fisheries that were once in question were widely heralded as successful.

Our research indicates that Alaska seafood processors spent roughly $70 million in 2020 to mitigate the spread of the virus through quarantines, chartered travel, and other measures. Seafood harvesters who responded to a separate ASMI survey reported spending an average of $9,350 per vessel on covid mitigation in 2020, while 82 percent said they expect covid-19 costs to be the same or higher in 2021. Uncertainty also resulted in fewer fishermen on the water. Crew license sales data from Alaska Department of Fish and Game show a 31 percent drop in commercial crew license sales from 2019.

Unfortunately, covid-19 cases exploded across the country at the end of 2020, just before the start of the 2021 winter/spring fisheries. Despite extensive precautions including prework quarantines, chartered travel and regular testing, several of Alaska’s largest seafood processors experienced outbreaks. Rapid responses and expanded vaccine distribution contained and mitigated the spread of the outbreaks. However, because of the high costs of bringing thousands of workers for these winter fisheries, as well as the response costs associated with outbreaks and mitigation measures that will continue throughout the year, the mitigation price tag for processors in 2021 is expected to exceed $100 million.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: New report estimates at least $5M cost to replace subsistence salmon with other protein sources in Bristol Bay

April 23, 2021 — A third of the state’s subsistence salmon harvest was caught in Bristol Bay in 2017, according to a new report from the McKinley Research Group. The subsistence economy is critical to Bristol Bay’s culture, and it’s the oldest and most continuous use of salmon.

The report, “The Economic Benefits of Bristol Bay”, attempts to quantify what it would cost to replace subsistence salmon with other protein sources from stores in the region.

Bristol Bay subsistence fishers caught over 500,000 pounds of salmon in 2017, according to the latest data available. The research group estimates that it would cost $5-$10 million to replace that catch with other sources of protein. Rebecca Braun is one of the researchers who worked on the report.

“Because the world speaks in dollars, we tried to translate the subsistence harvest into dollars,” Braun said. “And it’s kind of an inherently impossible exercise because subsistence values goes beyond economics.”

Read the full story at KTOO

New Economic Study: 2.2 Billion Reasons to Protect Bristol Bay

March 22, 2021 — A report titled “The Economic Benefits of the Bristol Bay Salmon Fishery” shows the fishery’s economic benefits exceeded $2.2 billion in 2019, generating more than 15,000 jobs while feeding hundreds of thousands of people. Produced by McKinley Research Group and released by the Bristol Bay Defense Fund, the recently gathered data will help quantify the importance of protecting Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine.

Bristol Bay produces 57% of the world’s sockeye salmon catch and is a $990 million economic engine in Alaska alone. Economists estimate the induced impacts for the Pacific Northwest at $800 million.

Read the full story at Seafood News