The sockeye size decline charted from North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) data
Alaska’s littlest sockeye salmon
Already struggling Alaska salmon processors are facing yet another problem in the fishery this year: shrinkage.
And, no, not that involving the plummeting prices for both wild-caught and farmed salmon since the start of the 2024 Alaska fishing season. Norway, the world’s largest salmon producer, has seen the value of its fish fall 18 percent since the start of the year, according to the agriculture trade website Selina Wamucii.
The problem now emerging in the Bay, however, is not with price as much as with the size of the fish themselves. They are on track to set a record for the smallest-ever average weight.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Bay sockeyes of this season are averaging 4.4 pounds, or about a tenth of a pound less than the size of the average pink salmon back in 1977 as the waters of the Gulf of Alaska began a warming phase.
The average sockeye that year weighed slightly over 7 pounds, a prime market size. And the average sockeye size through the 1970s would remain near 6.2 pounds. It was all downhill from there, however, as Alaska’s production of pink salmon grew into the new millennium with its never-before-seen harvests of over 200 million salmon per year.
The current record low, average size of 4.58 pounds was set in 2018.
The latest 10-year average for Bristol Bay sockeye is down to 5.21 pounds, almost a pound below the average of the 1970s. And the average may be somewhat misleading. The state of the fishery now is such that the sockeye caught in 2023 were considered “big” at an average weight of 5.5 pounds, the largest size since 2014, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game records.
The average size that year was 5.6 pounds. Only once did the fish come back this small between 1970 and 1993. According to state data, the smallest annual average for that period was 5.53 pounds in 1990.
Size matters
Weights matter here for a variety of reasons.
From a biological standpoint, bigger fish carry with them more eggs thus helping to ensure reproductive success on the spawning grounds, although this might be less of a concern in the Bay than elsewhere along the Pacific Coast of North America given the Bay’s long history of so-called over-escapement.
The really big issues with small fish in the Bay are economic. Commercial fishermen get paid not by the fish but by the pound, and what they earn determines how much local communities in the Bay collect in fish taxes as well as how much the state collects in such taxes and then funnels back to Bay communities.
There is, however, an even bigger issue in that the size of the fish affects not only their value but their marketability.
“You can cook wild or farm-raised salmon on the grill, though farm-raised tends to be more consistently fatty, which can work in your favor when cooking over such dry heat. If you do try to grill wild salmon, you’ll have a higher chance of success if you get thicker fillets as well as fattier ones.”
Ignore the reference to farmed salmon being better because they’re fatter. The big problem for Bay salmon in this case is that reference to “thicker fillets.” Both salmon filets and salmon steaks (a 4.4-pound fish is too small to steak) are now expected to look like beef steaks for the grill, and those steaks are classically an inch thick or thicker.
Wholesale-farmed salmon prices reflect how value changes with size. Nasdaq, the most active stock exchange in the U.S., tracks these prices weekly, and they track the size differential.
These prices influence the market for all salmon given that about 80 percent of the salmon eaten in the world today comes from farms. Russia and Alaska split the market for wild-caught fish and much of that catch is pink salmon.
Little of the pink salmon catch competes with farmed fish in the major global markets because pinks are too small. The average pink caught in Alaska last year weighed 3.1 pounds.
As a result of size, many pinks are processed into cans and pouches, which is a rather small component of salmon sales in the Western World. In the U.S., for instance, the pandemic pushed canned salmon sales to a record $286 million in 2020.
Some pinks are in the four-pound and up range and can be fileted, but they end up looking more like various whitefish, even if they are red, and thus do not compete with the thick slices of salmon desired for grilling, roasting or baking.
Size is why you can find wild-caught pink salmon at King Sooper, a Kroger subsidiary, in the Denver area for less than $5 pound today, which is near a third the price of the fresh, wild-caught sockeye selling there for $14 per pound, which is about $3 more per pound than you’ll pay for that fish in a Costco in the Seattle or Anchorage areas.
Craig Medred photo
The retail prices seen here reflect the significant markups that take place as salmon move through the food supply chain.
State data reflects that after all was said and done last year in the Bay last year, the commercial fishermen working there ended up getting paid an average of 86 cents per pound for their sockeye. But by the time processors had headed and gutted those fish, it had more than quintupled to the price of $4.32 per pound at wholesale, according to state data.
From there, as the farmed salmon data from today reflects, the price will again double or triple at retail.
“Fresh Atlantic Salmon, Center Cut Loin, Farm Raised (never frozen; sustainably sourced)” is selling for $10.99 per pound at those Denver-area King Soopers today, or a little over three times what the fish are wholesaling for in Norway, Chile or Canada.
Alaska had a massive harvest of nearly 234 million salmon that same year, but only about 168,100 tonnes of the catch was salmon other than low-value pinks. State fishery managers that year bragged that the catch was “a greater than 98 percent increase from the 2020 total harvest of 116.8 million fish,” but conceded that “pink salmon accounted for approximately 28 percent of the value at $178.8 million and 69 percent of the harvest with under 161.0 million fish.”
The state has for decades been doing a great job of producing large volumes of salmon, but it has at the same time been doing a poor job of producing large, high-value salmon. And all indications are now that given the size declines among sockeye salmon, those Alaska fish are increasingly headed toward the low-value bin.
Part of this can be blamed on a warming ocean. Pink salmon, the smallest of the species, appear to possess a competitive advantage in warmer waters, and the same conditions that have made the Bay more productive for sockeye salmon appear to have contributed to some of their shrinkage.
Once at sea, many are now also maturing faster, and thus spend only two years there. These so-called 1.2 sockeye “are making up roughly 70% of the run overall” this year, according to Stacy Vega, the Bristol Bay Area Research Biologist for Fish and Game.
But warming clearly isn’t the only thing going on in that the UW scientists who have been monitoring the Bay fishery for decades report both the 1.2 sockeye and the 1.3 sockeye – those that spend three years at sea – are the smallest on record since 1990.
Some rogue salmon researchers have looked at all of this and suggested it is time to adapt management to warmer waters. At an International Year of the Salmon meeting in 2022, Seattle-based researcher Greg Ruggerone along with Canadians Brendan Connors and James Irvine didn’t exactly accuse Alaska of undercutting British Columbia and Pacific Northwest by flooding the North Pacific with Alaska salmon, but the did make these observations:
- “In general a warming ocean negatively affects salmon growth and survival at southern latitudes, but positively at northern ones.
- “Evidence of competition is more pronounced at southern latitudes, potentially because warming partially offsets effects in northern ones.
- “Salmon production will (and already has) shift(ed) north, creating new/more opportunities for harvest, but may face a climate ‘squeeze.’
- “improved communication and collaboration across salmon nations key to balancing the benefits AND risks of a warming and more crowded ocean.”
The Russians, which like Alaska, are managing their pink salmon for maximum sustained yield while further boosting returns with pink salmon hatcheries appear as if they could care less, but they have nothing to lose to the south.
There are signs the Japanese are transitioning toward land-based salmon farming. “Four new land-based recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) have either recently begun operations or are being planned in Japan,” the trade publication Seafood Source reported in 2020.
As for the 49th state, a few fishery heretics have begun to question whether it is wise to manage all wild salmon plus hatchery salmon for volume rather than size and quality, but the Commercial Fisheries Division of Fish and Game has long been locked into the belief that maximum sustained yield (MSY) should be the goal for all salmon runs even though this is something impossible to achieve at an ecosystem level given the competition for food at sea between the five species of salmon and a variety of marine species of fish also being managed for MSY.
I think 10k mt is 22 million lbs., which makes more sense than 2 million for capex of +$200 million. Still, seems pretty skinny.
First night out on the Susitna River dip net fishery was last Weds and no one was catching any fish…hoping it gets better this week after the rain raises water levels.
Interestingly, here in cook inlet, early returns of sockeye are averaging 1/2 to 1 pound larger than the last few years. I have heard reports that Copper River returns are averaging a bit larger as well.
With the decline in fish size in recent years , many fishermen are using smaller mesh than before, which in all likelihood results in lower average fish weights,due to harvesting smaller fish that just might slip on through the larger gear.
In that case, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot by harvesting more, but less desirable salmon.
Shooting yourself in the foot economically. Biologically, catching more of the smaller fish is probably a good thing given the issue of size selectivity. Remember when anglers were being blamed for the disappearance of large Kenai kings because they were catching “all” of the large fish?
Makes a guy wonder if there is also a crowding issue in these river systems making the fish head to the ocean earlier?
Well, that would be pretty strange given that sockeyes rear in rivers, not lakes. Could there be a density issue in some Bay lakes? I don’t think anyone has examined that issue, but if young fish were leaving earlier in a weaker condition because of in-lake competition for food you’d expect to see ocean survival plummet. And we haven’t seen that.
I’m guessing you meant to say that sockeyes rear in lakes, not rivers. Either way doesn’t much matter because that’s not what I was saying, I was talking about the whole river system including the lake. Against common belief, there are in fact sockeye that rear in rivers. Lacustrine sockeye rear in lakes Riverine sockeye rear in rivers.
“Eggs hatch during the winter, and the young “alevins” remain in the gravel, living off their yolk sacs. In the spring. they emerge from the gravel as “fry” and move to rearing areas. In systems with lakes, juveniles usually spend one to three years in fresh water, feeding on zooplankton and small crustaceans, before migrating to the ocean in the spring as “smolts”. However, in systems without lakes, many juveniles migrate to the ocean soon after emerging from the gravel.”
https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=sockeyesalmon.printerfriendly
Good catch. That was what I meant.
And, yes, some sockeye do rear in rivers, especially in Kamchatka. But most of those in Alaska rear in lakes. I’m not even sure we have enough river rearing sockeye to support much of a commercial fishery.
“River-type” sockeye salmon are not abundant across the Pacific Rim. Small populations have
been observed in the Kamchatka River, Bolshaya River, Mulchatna River (Nushagak drainage),
Stikine River, and Taku River (Wood et al. 1987; Burgner 1991; Eiler et al. 1992).
About half of those Taku riverine sockeye don’t rear at all. They go directly to sea, like humpies. Those that do rear in-river provide a tiny portion of a small harvest. The catch down there so far this year is under 12,000, and that includes the Snettisham hatchery fish. I’d expect the in-river rearing Taku sockeye annually account for fewer salmon than either Upper or Lower Russian lakes.
I’d think it fair to define them as the exception that makes the rule. That said, I would only add that if you can convince the Board of Fisheries to limit the commercial harvest of Upper Cook Inlet sockeye to the level of production of river-reared sockeye, you could end the Cook Inlet fish wars once and for all.
Any way you can track down the weight of Kenai River/Upper Cook Inlet sockeye so far this year? The river fish seem large right now and a few commercial fisherman I know have said the same. Just curious.
Fish tickets track weight, but ADF&G only puts catch numbers on the website in real time. It would be helpful if they did both. Why they don’t is a question I can’t answer, but I will ask it.
It would also be nice if ADF&G would report the number of the deliveries on its website, too, so that one could calculate CPUE in the drift fishery given that there is now no test boat fishery any more. But they don’t do that either, although they do for Copper River sockeye. Go figure.