Alaska's 2007 salmon harvest of 212 million fish appears to be the fourth largest catch on record, with pink and sockeye salmon substantially above preseason forecasts, but chum, coho and Chinook catches significantly below their respective projections.
The preliminary end-of-season report issued by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said the catch had an estimated value of $374 million.
The statewide sockeye harvest totaled just over 47 million fish, substantially higher than the preseason projection of 40 million, and the largest Alaska sockeye catch in a decade. The Bristol Bay harvest of nearly 30 million fish was the largest in a decade and sockeye catches for the rest of the state rebounded from 13 million in 2006 to 17 million in 2007.
In fact, the 2007 season ranks as the eighth largest among Alaska sockeye catches for the last century. Still, more significant with respect to market supply is the consistently strong sockeye catches of the last four years, said fisheries economist Chris McDowell. His analysis is contained in the latest edition of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute's Seafood Market Bulletin.
“Statewide harvest has exceeded 40 million sockeye only 14 times since record-keeping began in the 1880s, but sockeye harvest has exceeded 40 million in each of the last four years, averaging 44 million since 2004,” McDowell said. “This approaches the historical peak sockeye production of the 1989-1996 period, when average harvest was 53 million sockeye. For perspective, the 50-year average harvest is 28 million sockeye and the 100-year average is 25 million.”
The Bristol Bay sockeye harvest totaled 29.7 million fish in 2007, but the return to the bay was significantly stronger than harvest indicates, McDowell said. The 2007 projection called for a total return of 34 million fish to Bristol Bay, but according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the actual return was over 44 million sockeye, he wrote.
The Bristol Bay harvest was similar for 2006, with 28.4 million fish, and 2007, with 29.7 million fish. The 2006 season was unique for its two distinct peaks, which spread the bulk of harvest over the course of four weeks. The 2007 season had a more typical run timing, with most fish arriving in the traditional two-week window between late June and early July.
Despite higher daily processing capacity in 2007, the fleet quickly exceeded processors' capacity as the run peaked. Processors responded with delivery limits and occasional buying stoppages during a full week at the peak of the season, McDowell said.
Elsewhere in Alaska, most of the major sockeye fisheries produced at or near their projected levels. The Alaska Peninsula sockeye fisheries produced a harvest of 5.8 million fish on a projection of 4 million and Chignik, which produced only 800,000 fish, had a projection of 1.3 million.
The pink harvest of 134 million fish beat the preseason projection by 25 percent, ranking as the third largest Alaska pink harvest on record. Prince William Sound was the top performer, with a preliminary harvest of 54 million pinks, compared to the projection of 40 million. Southeast Alaska produced 44 million pinks, slightly below projection, and Kodiak produced 24 million, double the preseason projection.
The 2007 Chinook catch was fairly consistent with the 10-year average harvest, but disappointing in light of the preseason projection, and the strongest harvest of recent years, McDowell said. The preliminary 2007 Chinook harvest is 499,000 fish, compared to the projected 789,000 fish.
Market supply of wild Chinook peaked during 2002-2004, with an average coastwide harvest of nearly 2 million Chinooks from West Coast states, British Columbia and Alaska. Supply dropped to slightly over 1 million fish in 2006, when West Coast fishery managers reduced harvest to protect the Klamath River stock in Oregon.
The considerable drop in market supply drove Alaska Chinook prices to a 25-year high in 2006. Alaska Chinook prices were at similar levels for the 2007 summer season, and the opening price of more than $7 a pound for the winter troll fishery was believed to be the highest ever.
The 2007 chum harvest of 15.5 million fish is fairly normal, but considering the projection for a record chum harvest of 24.7 million in 2007, the season was a disappointment, McDowell said. Some additional volume of chum, as well as coho salmon, was expected from September and October fisheries in Southeast Alaska and Prince William Sound. Those fisheries typically add 1 million to 2 million salmon to the harvest total.
The preliminary statewide coho harvest total of 2.9 million fish was nearly 40 percent below preseason projections of 4.7 million fish. Like the chum fishery, some additional volume of coho was expected from September and October fisheries, but the total coho harvest appeared unlikely to exceed 3.5 million for the 2007 season, McDowell said.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
