Salmon Outlook Gloomy, Scientists Say Bay in for a Rough Time

By Wesley Loy Anchorage Daily News Reporter (Published November 1, 2000) 

University of Washington scientists are predicting a grim harvest next year in Alaska's premier Bristol Bay red salmon fishery, and the outlook for good prices to fishermen looks equally bleak. 

Next year's Bristol Bay catch is expected to be about 13.8 million reds out of a total run of 21.5 million, compared to this summer's harvest of about 20.5 million fish, according to a forecast from the Fisheries Research Institute at UW. 

"That's a disaster," said longtime Dillingham fisherman Hjalmar Olson.

Indeed, if the forecast holds true, the catch in Alaska's biggest and richest salmon fishery would be almost as poor as the awful runs of 1997 and1998, when so few fish came back to spawn that the governor and federal officials doled out aid to help western Alaska residents pay heating bills and other expenses. 

Prices have been sagging overall for Alaska salmon, in large measure due to the rise of foreign salmon farming, which has flooded key markets like Japan with farmed fish. Combined, the Alaska salmon fisheries for 2000 were worth $260 million at the docks, the lowest value in 10 years, according to figures released this week by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 

At one time, when Alaska stood a lot taller in the world salmon market, a weak run at Bristol Bay meant higher prices. But with the powerful surge in fish farming, the loss of wild Alaska fish doesn't mean so much. 

Terry Gardiner, president of NorQuest Seafoods, a Seattle-based fish packer, said frozen red or sockeye salmon is selling for dismal prices in Japan. 

The low forecasted catch will worry a whole army of people who annually trek to remote Bristol Bay for a month long battle with a usually giant charge of reds - from 1,900 boat owners to packers to fish haulers to net hangers to fuel vendors, Gardiner said. 

"It's punishing," he said. "Our industry, the whole apparatus, we're way overbuilt for this kind of run." 

Dick Hellberg, a fisherman in Warrenton, Ore., called the forecast "pretty sad." 

"A lot of guys probably will stay home," he said. "It just depends on what your overhead is. I don't see how anyone with a new boat or these poor souls who paid $100,000 and even $200,000 for a permit can come out. Anyone with that kind of debt load is just dead in the shed." 

There is a chance, however, that the University of Washington forecast is wrong. Forecasters at both UW and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game failed to see the crashes of 1997 and 1998, predicting much stronger runs than actually came. 

"We're not very good at this," said Jeff Regnart, Fish and Game's supervisory biologist for Bristol Bay. "It's an educated guess." 

Fish and Game is still at least a week away from releasing the official state Bristol Bay forecast, but Regnart said it would call for only a slightly larger harvest than UW, perhaps a million more reds. 

The forecasts generally are built on records of how many fish return to the bay to spawn and how many smolts leave fresh water for life at sea. 

Next year's low forecast in part reflects the lack of parent fish from the 1997 disaster year, Regnart said. But the bigger factor seems to be changes in ocean survival of fish, due perhaps to warming waters or increasing numbers of predators, Regnart said. 

Some also point to interception of migrating fish by illegal high-seas driftnet vessels or boats in Russian waters. 

Biologists were troubled this summer when they noticed a lack of "jack" salmon returning to the bay. Jacks are sexually mature 3-year-old fish returning to spawn at least a year early. More than half of all returning Bristol Bay fish are 5 years old. 

A lot of returning jacks is usually a good indicator of how many "older brothers and sisters" remain at sea, Regnart said. "We didn't see any jacks this summer," he said. 

Many fishermen think Bristol Bay has other problems besides just biology. Hellberg and many other fishermen believe regulatory changes over the years that shifted fishing effort to Egegik, one of the bay's five districts, has resulted in too many incoming fish being caught before reaching the Kvichak River deeper in the bay. The Kvichak was a bust this summer, even though it was a year when biologists expected a big run.