The 2016 Alaska salmon harvest is expected to drop 40 percent from last year’s count, says Alaska Dispatch News, primarily due to a routine decline in pink salmon numbers that hits every two years. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game predicts a total salmon catch of 161 million this summer, compared to 268 million fish in 2015.
With fewer salmon on the global market, prices will rise, especially since wild and farmed salmon fisheries in other parts of the world are suffering. In Chile, the largest salmon importer to the U.S., sales could fall 20 percent due to a toxic algae bloom. And Norway, the world’s largest salmon producer, is dealing with a major outbreak of sea lice. Fisheries in Japan also have been hit hard, spurring a 320-percent increase in the Japanese demand for Alaska Sockeye last October-December.
Meanwhile, Alaskan halibut fishermen are looking at 50 cents more per pound than last year, right around the mid-$6 range. Researchers have been following the drop in halibut size over the last few years and now think that fishing the slow-growing species when they are too young is the main cause. “A Pacific halibut that weighed 120 pounds 30 years ago tips the scales at less than 45 pounds today even though it’s the same age,” explains the Dispatch.