Stop Catching Aleutian Cod • Good Prices for Halibut
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
LEARN HOW TO DROWN EFFECTIVELYY COMMERCIAL FISHERMEN’S FESTIVAL See Page 22 www.pacifi cfi shing.com THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR FISHERMENN ■ SEPTEMBERSEPE TETEMBERR 201020010 BBigig mmoneyoney fforor ssalmonalmon US $2.95/CAN. $3.95 • BBiOp:iOp: SStoptop ccatchingatching AAleutianleutian ccodod 09 • GGoodood ppricesrices fforor hhalibutalibut 63126 • DDirectirect mmarketingarketing ffromrom yyourour bboatoat The first wholesale value of Alaska salmon reached $1,069,400,000, and the price paid to fishermen reached a 13-year high, boosting state and local economies and the private sector. Photo: © Steve Lee Photo: © Steve Lee Alaska Ex-Vessel Value, Alaska Salmon Value Growth: Key Commercial Species Ex-Vessel and First Wholesale $2,000 $1,200 $1,000 $1,600 $800 $1,200 $600 $800 2007-2008 $400 $400 Increase 14.4% Value ($ millions) Value ($ millions) $200 $0 $0 2003 2004 2005 20062007 2008 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Source: ADF&G, NMFS, SMIS estimates Ex-Vessel First Wholesale Value, selected products Combined value of salmon, pollock, P-cod, sablefish & halibut, Source: ADF&G, AK Dept. of Revenue shellfish, other groundfish Selected products: fresh and frozen H&G, fresh and frozen fillet, salmon roe, canned salmon Check out the industry e-newsletter Newsbrief on the Seafood Industry portion of the ASMI website, www.alaskaseafood.org. Subscribe to Newsbrief and Seafood Market Information Service. Check out Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute on Facebook, where you’ll find a link to a new 60-second video on You Tube about Alaska bears, whales and fishermen. iversar nn y A h t 0 1980-2010 3 IN THIS ISSUE Editor's note ® THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR FISHERMEN Crapped up INSIDE: Don McManman Once, in my checkered career, I held a position of sobriety and trust. (I know it’s hard to believe, especially the sobriety part.) I worked for a commercial nuclear plant. Specifically, I had unrestricted access to everywhere you’d want go in the plant — and plenty of places you’d not want to go. I learned a lot, some of which was about language. BBonanzaonanza pprices:rices: As with any aloof profession — such as commercial fishing — nuclear PPageage 4 guys had their own jargon. One term I learned and liked was “crapped up.” If you somehow were contaminated by radioactive material, you’ll have been “crapped up.” And, in my mind, that’s the perfect term to describe the salmon farm industry. It craps up everything it touches. I guess it’d be OK if salmon farmers crapped up their own piece of paradise and left the hell alone everything else. But that’s not the way the industry works. It lands in beautiful places — Chile’s archipelago or British Columbia’s inland waters — and craps them up. LLearnearn howhow toto ddrown:rown: We’ve been trying to PPageage 6 tell that story this year, and we have the per- fect person to tell it: Kristin Hoelting. Kristin’s family comes from Petersburg. She’s the granddaughter of a halibut fisherman there, FFishish ffarmersarmers sshiphip ddisease:isease: Oscar Sandvik. She’s also the daughter of our ad PPageage 9 manager, Diane Sandvik. Kristin graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. She became interested in salmon Kristin Hoelting is in front of the fairlead. farming when living in Chile for a year. She then received a Fulbright Scholarship for 2007-08 to study wild salmon restoration in Norway. IIt'st's AAlaska'slaska's fault:fault: Meanwhile, she fished for salmon for five seasons, out of Petersburg and in PPageage 1122 Bristol Bay. Now she’s a graduate student at the University of Washington, and her work for Pacific Fishing reflects her academic rigor. On the cover: In March, Kristen wrote about Norway’s salmon farms now spewing sea lice The F/V Sea Fury, skippered by Gregg Lovrovich out of Gig Harbor, into wild waters, much as B.C. fish farms have done for years. In May, she wrote Wash., prepares for another set in Anita Bay, Southeast Alaska. about sea lice building resistance to the drugs used to control them. Josh Zirschky photo This month, Kristin writes about a horrible wasting disease spread, in part, by international trade in salmon eggs for farms. See Page 9. VOLUME XXXI, NO. 9 • SEPTEMBER 2010 She’ll have a fourth article in a few months — this one discussing another fish Pacific Fishing (ISSN 0195-6515) is published 12 times a year (monthly) by Pacific farm disease that could crap up the wild environment. Fishing Magazine. Editorial, Circulation, and Advertising offices at 1000 Andover These articles are long and not very sexy. They take up a lot of space. We Park East, Seattle, WA 98188, U.S.A. Telephone (206) 324-5644. ■ Subscriptions: One-year rate for U.S., $18.75, two-year $30.75, three-year $39.75; Canadian don’t sell many more magazines because of them. We certainly don’t sell more subscriptions paid in U.S. funds add $10 per year. Canadian subscriptions paid in ads. But we publish them because no one else will. Canadian funds add $10 per year. Other foreign surface is $36 per year; foreign airmail is $84 per year. ■ The publisher of Pacific Fishing makes no warranty, express Because that’s our job. And that’s why I’m pleased that Kristin has chosen to or implied, nor assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the information work with us. contained in Pacific Fishing. ■ Periodicals postage paid at Seattle, Washington. Postmaster: Send address changes to Pacific Fishing, 1000 Andover Park East, But back to my career in nuclear power: They fired me. It wasn’t my Seattle, WA 98188. Copyright © 2010 by Pacific Fishing Magazine. Contents may not performance. It probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but it was my be reproduced without permission. POST OFFICE: Please send address changes to attitude that got all crapped up. Pacific Fishing, 1000 Andover Park East, Seattle, WA 98188 WWW.PACIFICFISHING.COM SEPTEMBER 2010 PACIFICFISHING 3 STATS PACK Salmon prices Don’t act so surprised! PREFERRED PUBLICATION OF: fish. In our coverage three years ago, we focused on CORDOVA DISTRICT Bristol Bay Sockeye Prices China. Its cheap labor made it possible for frozen, FISHERMEN UNITED and Numbers of Buyers boneless salmon fillets to reach global consumers at a With the exception of 2010, these are the cheaper price. UNITED FISHERMEN final settlement numbers Result: Lower supply. More demand. Together they OF ALASKA mean higher prices, whether sockeye are caught in NUMBER OF Bristol Bay or anywhere else. WASHINGTON DUNGENESS FINAL PRICE BUYERS The average base at Kodiak was $1.49 a pound, up from $1.11 last year. In Prince William Sound, gillnett- CRAB FISHERMEN’S ASSOC. 1989 2.25 19 1.09 16 ers were getting $2.25, up from $1.72. In Southeast, WESTERN FISHBOAT 0.75 16 sockeye was selling for $2, up about 75 cents from last 1.12 18 year, according to our columnist Laine Welch. OWNERS ASSOC. 0.67 12 In British Columbia, grounds prices started at $2.20 0.97 16 in the first opening in early July, but rapidly escalated 1995 0.77 22 to $2.75 as buyers scrambled for fish, according to col- To Subscribe: 0.81 19 umnist Michel Drouin. Prices were down to $1.75 per www.pacifi cfi shing.com/ 0.9 18 pf_subscribe.html pound by July 20. Ph: (206) 324-5644 1.22 15 So, the processors have more money into the Fax: (206) 324-8939 0.84 12 product before they take it to the street. Will they be 2000 0.67 12 able to get a higher price? Main Offi ce 0.42 11 1000 ANDOVER PARK EAST “Obviously, that’s the question,” said Tom 0.49 8 SEATTLE, WA 98188 Sunderland, director of marketing for Ocean Beauty. 0.51 7 PH: (206) 324-5644 “In this business, you gotta be optimistic.” FAX: (206) 324-8939 0.51 6 Sunderland, and the rest of the industry, have a 2005 0.62 8 Chairman/CEO good sales pitch, though. MIKE DAIGLE 0.55 7 [email protected] 0.64 5 “A lot of the demand is attributable to the gen- Publisher eral good press ASMI and others get for wild fish,” PETER HURME 0.69 7 [email protected] 0.7 6 Sunderland said. 2010 0.95* “Continuous marketing over a long period of time EDITORIAL CONTENT: is paying its rewards. *Base price, which will perhaps grow to $1.15 for the final payment. Associate Publisher & Editor “Wild salmon, particularly Alaska salmon, is being DON MCMANMAN demanded by consumers.” [email protected] PH: (509) 772-2578 It’s not that we didn’t warn you. Competition: In the graph, we include the number Sockeye prices on Bristol Bay were signifi- of buyers on the bay. Unfortunately, this data is kind Anchorage Offi ce WESLEY LOY cantly higher this year than last year — or than of mushy. The number of serious buyers varies accord- Field Editor the last 12 years. A base of 95 cents — up 36 per- ing to who you ask. MICHEL DROUIN cent from last year — will translate to a final price Welch did some digging: “Tim Sands/ADFG/ Copy Editor/Proofreader of up to $1.15, depending on handling of the Dillingham just told me 12 majors are buying, BRIANNA MORGAN fish and final processor settlements. including Togiak Seafoods [Copper River Seafoods] We promised it would happen on our cover of and one called Coffee Point at Egegik. PRODUCTION OPERATIONS: May 2007. “He said it can be confusing, as there are so many Production Manager DAVID SALDANA We arrived at the forecast not by speaking with different buyers specific to regions, e.g., the total [email protected] biologists, fish manag- number listed for Graphic Design & Layout ers, fishermen asso- 2010 is 39 processors, ERIN DOWNWARD ciation presidents, For a look at the British Columbia sockeye but some are mom- [email protected] politicians, or the local fi shery, see Page 15.