Sockeye

Alaska: Salmon Prices Show Marked Seasonal Variations

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Salmon prices at wholesale show marked seasonal variations for both wild and farmed fish. It’s a pattern that has been tracked for decades by Urner Barry, the nation’s oldest commodity market watcher in business since 1895. The prices tend to decline through June, July, August and September and they begin rising again from November through the following April or May.

Two things drive the well-established pattern, said market expert John Sackton who publishes Seafood.com, an Urner-Barry partner.

“There’s a growth cycle for farmed salmon when they eat more and grow faster at certain times of the year, and so the harvests, particularly those that come into the US market from Chile for example, really peak in June, July and August, which are our summer months and the winter months in Chile,” Sackton explained. “Then there is the opening of the wild salmon season each summer and all of a sudden you get a lot more diversity and availability of Alaskan salmon.”

Sackton said buyers of both wild sockeyes and farmed salmon are starting to push back a bit on high prices. That’s likely reflected in the $3.50 advances for the first reds at Copper River in mid-May, which was down 50 cents from last year’s starting price.

A big wild card for North American salmon this summer is the projected 72 million sockeye return at British Columbia’s Fraser River. Sackton said Japanese buyers, who have been somewhat priced out of the sockeye market in recent years because there has been so much demand elsewhere and a drop in the yen has made it harder for them to buy, are hoping that a big run will open up more opportunities for them. Even though they’ve been buying less, Japan is still an important part of a three legged stool.

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Alaska: Slow Start to Alaska Salmon Season

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Trollers in Southeast Alaska provide fresh king salmon nearly year round, but the runs of reds and kings to the Copper River mark the “official start” of Alaska’s salmon season.

On May 15 the fleet of more than 570 fishermen set out their nets on a beautiful day for the first 12 hour opener amidst the usual hype for the first fish.

Prices for the first fish dipped a bit – Copper River Seafoods posted advance sockeye prices at $3.50 and $6.00 for kings; that compares to $4.00 and $6.00-$7.00, respectively, for last year’s opener.

In what has become a traditional rite of spring, Alaska Airlines whisked away the first 24,000 pounds of the famous fish to Seattle where pilots traversed a red carpet to hand deliver a 48 pound king salmon to three chefs for a cook-off at Sea-Tac Airport. At least five other jets carried fresh fish from Cordova to eager buyers throughout the US, as well as to Anchorage.

Sockeyes are by far Alaska’s most valuable salmon, typically worth about two-thirds of the total statewide salmon haul. But in terms of global supply, wild sockeye are rare creatures – they account for about 5 percent of all wild and farmed production, and represent just 15 percent of the world’s wild salmon harvest.

Alaska typically accounts for 70 percent or more of global sockeye production, with nearly half of that coming from Bristol Bay. The U.S. is the single largest market, purchasing nearly 44 percent by value in 2012. Japan and the U.K. are next, followed by Canada.

Alaska’s sockeye salmon catch this year is projected at nearly 34 million fish, five million more than last year. Average statewide price last year was $1.60, an increase of 30 cents from 2012.

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Russia’s Largest Sockeye Salmon Fishery Achieves MSC Certification

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The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced that the Ozernaya River sockeye fishery in southwest Kamchatka has been certified as a sustainable fishery and will receive the MSC ecolabel.

This is the first fishery from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula to receive the MSC label and follows on the heels of two other certifications of Russian salmon fisheries: the Iturup Island pink and chum salmon fishery and northeast Sakhalin Island’s pink salmon fishery.

The Ozernaya sockeye fishery is operated by Vityaz Avto and Delta, two of the largest salmon fishing companies on the Kamchatka Peninsula. “We are proud to be the first fishing companies on Kamchatka to receive the MSC ecolabel. This certification demonstrates what we knew all along: this is a well-managed and sustainable fishery. We are determined to help it stay that way,” said Aleksandr Tarasov of Delta, Ltd.

Ozernaya sockeye is one of the few salmon runs in Russia that are almost entirely exported. The main market for Ozernaya sockeye is currently in Japan, but interest in the US and European markets is increasing, and a portion of the catch goes to these markets as well.

The Ozernaya MSC certification is the culmination of over three years of work by commercial fishermen in collaboration with the Wild Salmon Center (WSC) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The certification is another signal of the growing wave of Russian salmon fisheries engaging in the MSC assessment process. Currently 20% of Russia’s Pacific salmon fisheries are either MSC certified or in the MSC assessment process. Additional Russian fisheries are in the pipeline, underscoring the strong global demand for MSC certified salmon and Russia’s emerging significance in the global seafood marketplace.

“The Ozernaya sockeye fishery is one of the crown jewels of the global wild salmon fishery. While the fishery’s management isn’t perfect and there is more work to be done, the salient point is that this ecosystem needs to be protected and sustained. Like Bristol Bay in Alaska, the Ozernaya is a wild salmon ecosystem that is too important to lose,” said Brian Caouette of the Wild Salmon Center.

The headwaters of the Ozernaya Watershed are located in the protected Kuril Lake/South Kamchatka Nature Reserve, which safeguards critically important spawning and rearing grounds for wild salmon as well as habitat for grizzly bears, Steller’s sea eagles, and myriad other wildlife. The southwest Kamchatka coast, which includes the Ozernaya, is the most biodiversity-rich region for salmon in the world, including all seven species of Pacific salmon: Chinook, coho, sockeye, pink, chum, cherry salmon and steelhead.

The 1000-kilometer long Kamchatka Peninsula is located at the far eastern end of Russia, between the Sea of Okhotsk and the North Pacific Ocean. Kamchatka contains a vast network of rivers that remain free-flowing from headwaters to ocean and are virtually unaltered by human development. This region produces up to one-fourth of all wild Pacific salmon and 20% of Russia’s seafood.

Source: www.thefishsite.com