Pacific halibut catches for 2022 will be announced at the annual International Pacific Halibut Commission meeting held online Jan. 24-28, and fishermen are hoping for another year of increased catches when the fishery opens in early March.
Last year’s coastwide catch limit was 39 million pounds for commercial, sport, subsistence and personal-use fisheries, and bycatch, spanning from California and British Columbia to the far reaches of the Bering Sea.
Alaska always gets the lion’s share of the quota, and in 2021 fishermen holding shares of the catch took 93% of their limit — almost 20 million pounds — by the time the fishery in Alaska closed on Dec. 7, one month longer than usual. Homer, Seward, Kodiak, Juneau and Sitka were top ports for halibut landings.
The average price paid to Alaska commercial fishermen for halibut in 2021 was $6.40 per pound, bringing the fishery value to $109 million, according to NOAA data. That compares to a 2020 dock price of $4.12 per pound and a commercial fishery value of almost $62 million.
Winter busy time
for Alaska fisheries
Salmon is the heart of Alaska’s seafood industry but winter is when the fishing action begins. Hundreds of boats are out on the water on the first day of each new year, beginning a predictable rhythm for the seafood industry as millions of pounds of fish begin to cross the docks around the clock at Alaska’s working waterfronts.
Starting Jan. 1, boats drop pots and baited lines for cod, rockfish and other whitefish in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea.
Alaska pollock, the nation’s largest food fishery, opens to trawl fishing on Jan. 20.
A Tanner crab fishery opens on Jan. 15 at Kodiak, Chignik and the South Peninsula with a combined catch of 1.8 million pounds.
Tanner crab and golden king crab fisheries open in Southeast on Feb. 11. A Tanner crab fishery also opens in Prince William Sound on March 1.
Bering Sea crabbers are fishing for tanners and golden king crab and will start dropping pots for snow crab this month.
Southeast divers are wrapping up a nearly 1.9 million pound sea cucumber harvest, and divers also are still digging up giant geoduck clams in some regions.
Trollers are pulling up Chinook salmon in a fishery that will close on March 15. They’ve taken 6,219 winter kings so far, valued at an average of $122.43.
Good global outlook
“A Rising Tide” for seafood sales is predicted by the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. (EXIM) in a report that outlines performance and opportunities.
More people worldwide are recognizing the health benefits of seafood, said Jane Lemons, business development specialist for the Office of Small Business at EXIM, an independent federal agency whose mission is “to support American jobs by facilitating U.S. exports.” The bank helps U.S. businesses obtain financing for overseas sales.
Seafood consumption is growing faster than beef, chicken and pork. The global per capita average in 2018 was 45.2 pounds per year; it’s predicted to reach 47.4 pounds in 2030.
As populations — and popularity — continue to grow, EXIM forecasts that global seafood sales will reach nearly $140 billion by 2027, compared to $113.2 billion in 2020.
Fisheries based in the U.S. exported $4.5 billion in seafood products totaling nearly three billion pounds in 2020. Of that, 2.2 billion pounds came from Alaska. Seafood has been Alaska’s top export for decades, averaging $3.3 billion annually, or more than half of the state’s total annual exports value.
Top international buyers of U.S. seafood in 2020 included Canada, China and Japan. The bestselling products were live lobster, Alaska pollock surimi, frozen fillets and roe, and frozen sockeye salmon.
“As the world continues to emerge from the pandemic and consumer demand continues to evolve, the potential remains for increased export sales in the future,” Lemons wrote. China, for example, cannot meet the food demand of its 1.4 billion people, and “this misalignment will only increase as years go by, offering substantial opportunities for export sales.”
Southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and France are excellent trade partners because, in addition to their high seafood consumption rates, they are also Europe’s major processing nations and reexport to other destinations.
“Fisheries would be wise to consider well-located trade hubs, including Hong Kong, which reexported over 40% of all agricultural products, or the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, which act as a gateway to the rest of mainland Europe,” Lemons said.
COVID cans Ketchikan
The COVID-19 pandemic has derailed the Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting that planned to meet in-person Jan. 4-15 in Ketchikan.
The board oversees management of Alaska commercial, sport, subsistence and personal-use fisheries in state waters out to three miles.
The meeting, set to address 157 Southeast and Yakutat fishery issues, has been “postponed to a future date and location to be determined,” according to the Department of Fish and Game.
“Cases in Southeast are increasing in almost every community. With the rise in cases post the holiday season, already key staff have contracted COVID-19 and are unable to participate. In addition, the nation and Alaska are facing serious transportation difficulties as weather and the pandemic are seriously hampering travel in the near-term,” the department said in the announcement.
Adding to the challenge is the resignation of newest board member Indy Walton, of Soldotna, who Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed last September. Walton named “medical issues and his busy business schedule as considerations in his decision.”
The governor’s office has not yet named a replacement.
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