April 6, 2021 — Fifty-one million sockeye are forecast to return to Bristol Bay this summer.
If that holds, commercial fishermen will be able to harvest around 37 million reds. That’s 13% more than the average harvests of the past decade.
2020’s Southeast salmon harvest among worst on record, according to Alaska Fish & Game data
April 1, 2021 — Last year’s salmon harvest across all species in Southeast Alaska was one of the worst in 50 years. Here’s what Southeast’s regional commercial fishery supervisor had to say about the terrible season, and about his hopes for the coming year.
A special report released in March paints a stark picture of 2020’s salmon harvest in Southeast Alaska.
“Overall, it was one of the lowest harvests we’d seen, I think since the ’70s,” says Lowell Fair. He’s the Southeast regional supervisor for the commercial fisheries division of Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It was already clear from preliminary reports that last year’s salmon season was a rough one. But just how rough?
For sockeye, the harvest was the second lowest since 1962 — that’s just a couple of years after the Department of Fish & Game was formed and started collecting data.
King harvest was in the bottom five harvests since the early 1960s as well.
Coho and pink harvests came in stronger than kings and sockeye, but were still among the lowest years in recent memory, ranking 48th and 53rd since 1962, respectively.
One Alaska king salmon is worth the same as two barrels of oil right now
February 10, 2021 — Seafood sales “are on fire” in America’s supermarkets and one king salmon from Southeast Alaska is worth the same as two barrels of oil.
That’s $116.16 for a troll-caught chinook salmon averaging 11 pounds at the docks vs. $115.48 for 2 barrels of oil at $57.74 per barrel on Feb. 3.
As more COVID-conscious customers opted in 2020 for seafood’s proven health benefits, salmon powered sales at fresh seafood counters. Frozen and “on the shelf” seafoods also set sales records, and online ordering tripled to top $1 billion.
Those are some takeaways from a National Fisheries Institute Global Marketing Conference hosted online by SeafoodSource News.
Here is a sampler of what experts called “eye-popping” 2020 retail sales reflecting America’s trend to eat more fish:
IRI, a world leader in market data, said overall sales at in-store fresh seafood counters jumped 28% to $871 million, led by salmon with a 19% increase to $2.2 billion.
ALASKA: Converging forces make for worst Upper Cook Inlet commercial salmon season in decades
November 13, 2020 — Low prices, an oddly timed sockeye run and another year of very poor Kenai king returns combined to result in one of the worst Upper Cook Inlet commercial fishing seasons on record.
The 2020 Upper Cook Inlet harvest of roughly 1.2 million salmon was less than half the recent 10-year average harvest of 3.2 million fish and the estimated cumulative ex-vessel value of approximately $5.2 million was the worst on record, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Upper Cook Inlet Commercial Salmon Fishery Season Summary.
The average ex-vessel, or unprocessed wholesale value of salmon caught by the Upper Cook Inlet fleet over the previous 10 years was $27 million and the last time it didn’t reach at least $10 million was 2001 when the total ex-vessel harvest value was $7.7 million. The last time the nominal value of the Upper Cook Inlet fishery — not adjusted for inflation — was at least as low as 2020 was 1972 when a harvest of 2.2 million salmon netted $3.5 million for fishermen.
However, the dismal result of the 2020 fishery was not because the primary target species, sockeye, didn’t show up. The preseason estimate for the total Upper Cook Inlet sockeye return of nearly 4.3 million fish, which corresponded to a preseason commercial harvest estimate of roughly 1.7 million sockeye, was just 2 percent less than the total sockeye return of just more than 4.3 million fish to the region’s river systems.
Alaska removes funding for king, coho salmon hatcheries
September 18, 2020 — Alaska plans to stop providing state funding for hatcheries that produce king and coho salmon, according to a KFSK radio report.
The state of Alaska has in the past provided millions of dollars to king and coho hatcheries from money collected via a surcharge on sport fishing licenses, along with allocations of federal sport fishing money.
Alaska’s Copper River fishing season kicks off in a year like no other
May 15, 2020 — An Alaska commercial fishing season unlike any other kicked off in Cordova on Thursday.
Normally, the Copper River gillnet season, the first salmon fishery to open in the state, is known for high-priced fish and celebrity-level fanfare: One of the first fish to be caught is flown to Seattle via Alaska Airlines jet, and greeted with a red carpet photo opportunity.
From there, plump ruby fillets of Copper River salmon typically fetch astronomical prices at fine dining restaurants and markets. Last year, Copper River king salmon sold for $75 per pound, a record, at Seattle’s famed Pike Place Fish Market.
In this pandemic year, things are different all around: The Alaska Airlines first fish photo op will still happen, but the festivities have been tamped down and six-foot distancing and masks are now required. Instead of a cooking contest pitting Seattle chefs against each other, a salmon bake for workers at Swedish Hospital in Ballard is planned.
Alaska fishing community takes precautions as it prepares for salmon season
April 3, 2020 — As Alaska’s top doctor put it, “We know the fish are coming regardless of COVID-19 or not and we can’t ask them to stay home.”
As a result, government officials and fishing stakeholders statewide are working to ensure Alaska can still have a strong summer salmon season even amidst a potentially prolonged COVID-19 winter.
Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink made the comment during a March 30 press briefing, adding that the state has a specific fisheries work group trying to figure out ways small communities can handle an influx of fishermen and processing workers while also adhering to important health guidelines that run counter to the realities of a traditional fishing season.
While Alaska’s diverse fisheries continue year-round, the famed Copper River sockeye and king fishery that unofficially kicks off the salmon harvest in mid-May each year will be one of the first testing grounds for trying to find that balance.
Chinook salmon are getting smaller, and researchers say killer whales may be to blame
December 31, 2019 — Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, are getting smaller, and a team of scientists at the University of Washington think they know why. A new study says killer whales might be behind Chinook’s declining size.
Chinook salmon are an important part of life in Southeast Alaska. Part of the prized fish’s value is its size. Chinook are the largest Pacific salmon.
But in the last two years, returns have been low. Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg all saw their king salmon derbies cancelled in 2018 and 2019. And forecasts for 2020 don’t look much better.
But it’s not just their numbers that are declining.
University of Washington researcher Jan Ohlberger published a paper last year that shows Chinook are getting smaller, too. Up to 10 percent smaller.
That discovery intrigued the researcher.
“The question is, what is the cause of that?” said Ohlberger in a recent phone interview.
A causal claim is difficult to make. Correlation, of course, doesn’t always imply causation.
Southeast Alaska winter king salmon landings up from last year but still below average
November 13, 2019 — Southeast Alaska’s winter troll season for king salmon has gotten off to a little better start in 2019.
Commercial landings and number of fish caught are up from last year. However, both still lag behind five and 10-year averages for this point in the season.
Perhaps the most encouraging sign was the opening price of $12 per pound. Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Grant Hagerman says that’s the highest starting point on record.
“At this time last year the price had increased over the first month and it was just under 12,” Hagerman said. “So it’s pretty similar to last year. But starting out at $12 is the highest that we’ve had on record.”
Ōra King salmon likened in luxury to Wagyu beef in recent Bloomberg report
September 18, 2019 — Nelson, New Zealand-based company New Zealand King Salmon Co. recently had its brand of net-pen raised king salmon, Ōra King, likened to a luxury item celebrated by chefs the world over – Wagyu beef.
A profile published by media outlet Bloomberg on 13 September declared Ōra King as the “Wagyu beef of the seafood world,” noting the fish’s “strikingly marbled meat” as well as its “sumptuous melt-in-your-mouth texture.”