By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Pacific cod harvested in the icy waters of the Bering Sea is garnering harvesters 43 cents a pound, an increase of about 15 cents a pound compared to a year ago, thanks to growing demand and shrinking supplies.

"There is a general shortage of cod fish right now," Bob Alverson, executive director of the Fishing Vessel Owners Association, said Jan. 9. "The supply is getting squeezed and the demand is increasing. A lot of people are health conscious and are looking for substitutes too for higher-priced white fish, such as halibut."

Alverson, whose organization represents 95 fishing vessels, said he expected the higher price to intensify the race for fish.

"There is less supply in the water, so the supply for unit of effort should go down," he said. "But there should be more attempts, so it could be a shorter season because of the high value of the fish."

For the short term, at least, this will be good for the industry if harvesters maintain the value of the catch, he added.

The fishery opened Jan. 1 in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska for fixed-gear vessels. Trawl fisheries start Jan. 20. Alverson said there is a general shortage of cod right now, owing to several factors. Much of the European Union has recommended almost a total shutdown of cod fishing in the North Atlantic, because those waters are just played out, and the juvenile year classes are not coming in for some reason, he said.

Meanwhile, cod fishing off the eastern coast of Canada has been depressed for five or six years, and there have been a relatively low number of landings in the waters off of the New England states, he said.

In addition, cod quotas in the Bering Sea are expected to drop by more than 50,000 tons over the next two years, going from 206,000 tons to about 148,000 tons, again because the juvenile year classes are fewer in number, he said.

Alverson said some fisheries scientists are saying the situation is due to something called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. About every 30 years an Aleutian low-pressure system moves in, and that drives surface temperatures, he said. Alverson said the International Pacific Halibut Commission advised that the Bering Sea has been into this PDO cold-water regime for the past five years.

Some fisheries scientists have said that the colder water is not a friendly habitat for cod or pollock to spawn in the open ocean because of relatively limited food supply.

European entrepreneurs meanwhile are also seeing Pacific cod as a primary species of choice for fish farms, Alverson said. Eventually such farmed fish could become another competitor for wild Alaskan seafood. And in Washington state, legislators are considering allowing 40 large cod-fish pens in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, he said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskaournal.com.