Korea’s Dongwon Invests in Silver Bay Seafoods

Dongwon F&B Co., Ltd., of Seoul, Korea, owner of StarKist, a leader in the US tuna market, has acquired an equity interest in Silver Bay Seafoods LLC, an integrated processor of frozen, headed and gutted salmon based in Sitka, Alaska.

In an announcement issued from Seoul on Nov. 10, a spokesperson for Silver Bay said the cross-investment agreement includes having StarKist and Dongwon acquire a combined 12.5 percent equity interest in Silver Bay.

StarKist and Dongwon have substantial processing and canning facilities, global cold storage and distribution networks, and very successful branded products.

Silver Bay’s spokesperson called the deal a highly strategic move for the Alaska company that would provide an opportunity to continue to build the Alaska salon brand in the market.

Silver Bay was founded eight years ago with a goal of vertical integration of the Alaska salmon fleets to produce high quality salmon products for reprocessing and distribution. The company has facilities at Sitka, Craig, Valdez, Bristol Bay and Metlakatla, and has announced plans for a new processing facility in Ventura, California.

Dongwon, founded in 1969, and based in Seoul, was started as a fisheries business, but has since branched into several sectors, including food manufacturing and marketing. The company commands a 75 percent share of the canned tuna market in Korea and has a major tuna catching company.

The company’s fish and procurement and processing capacity builds on the national brand recognition of StarKist, founded in 1917 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which Dongwon acquired in 2008. StarKist also operates processing facilities in American Samoa and Ecuador, and is expanding into new species.

Lower Cook Inlet Waters are Radiation Free

Test results released Nov. 10 by Cook Inletkeeper, in Homer, Alaska, find there were no effects in salmon rich Kachemak Bay from radiation emissions from the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.

Inletkeeper, a community based nonprofit organization whose goal is protection of Alaska’s Cook Inlet watershed said the study was done with experts at Woods Hole’s Center for Marine and Environmental Radiation.

Water samples taken just north of Yukon Island in Kachemak Bay on Sept. 12, with assistance from staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were analyzed by CMER, to assure Alaskans that those waters were not contaminated, said Bob Shavelson, Inletkeeper executive director.

“We’ve received countless calls from Alaskans concerned about possible radiation contamination in Alaska waters,” Shavelson said. “So we’re happy to learn we’re not seeing the effects of Fukushima in Lower Cook Inlet waters at this time.”

CMER said in its report that they did not detect in the water sample any Cesium-134, the isotope tracer of the Fukushima release.

“This isotope has a short half-life (2 years) so any Cs-134 in the ocean today came from Fukushima,” the report said. “We detected 1.2 Bq per cubic meter of Cs-137, and this is typical of the background levels found in the Pacific as a result of nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s. Cs-137 has a half-life of 30 years, so that is why low levels can still be detected from that earlier source. If water influenced by Fukushima were in your sample, we would expect to detect Cs-134 and elevated levels of Cs-137, which we did not.”

CMER also released a statement on Nov. 10 announcing the “presence of small amounts of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident 100 miles due west of Eureka, California.

CMER said it found no elevated radioactivity in near shore waters, and the level in offshore waters “is far below where one might expect any measurable risk to human health or marine life, according to international health agencies. And it is more than 1,000 times lower than acceptable limits in drinking water set by US EPA.”

Oregon Salmon, Pink Shrimp Success Continues

Predictions sometimes prove accurate, and the 2014 salmon and pink shrimp seasons off Oregon’s shores are good examples.

In February, salmon fishery managers said at worst, this season could mirror last year’s upturn, at best provide another step upward as the Oregon salmon fishery continues to chart a course away from a multi-year collapse.

Strong abundance forecasts for coho, as well as Sacramento River and Klamath River fall Chinook, anticipated great returns of Chinook salmon destined for key river basins of the Columbia River Basin on Oregon’s northern coast, the Klamath River Basin on Oregon’s southern coast, and California’s Central Valley pointed to good Chinook catches along the entire Oregon coast. Coho population level were expected at such that fishery managers said they “should provide the most time on the water for coho fishing since the 2010 season.” Northwest biologists predicted the largest fall Chinook salmon run since 1938, the year record keeping began. They said an “unprecedented” 1.6 million Chinook could return from the Pacific Ocean to the tributaries that make up the Columbia River Basin that, along with nearly 1 million coho returns, could lead to what fishery managers say would be “a year to remember” for both commercial and recreational salmon fishermen.

“This should be a great year to be out on the ocean,” said Chris Kern, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) administrator for ocean salmon fisheries. So far, it is.

“It’s going very well,” said Nancy Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Oregon Salmon Commission. “Catch and value has already surpassed last year by a long shot. We’re seeing some nice, big fish.”

As of mid-September, commercial fishermen had landed more than 1.7 million pounds valued at more than $11 million, with a fair amount of fishing left to do. Prices to the boat rose as high as $8 to $9 per pound in April, but have since dropped and leveled out, with an average price of $6.28 per pound through the first six months of the season. By comparison, they landed 1.3 million pounds in 2013 worth $7.6 million, and 745,000 pounds in 2012 worth $4.2 million.

“We’re definitely back up since the disasters,” Fitzpatrick noted. “Last year was good. This year is outstanding.” Outstanding, at least, compared to the doldrums salmon fishermen endured from 2005 to 2010.

Commercial salmon fishermen watched their livelihoods dwindle to almost nothing during those seasons, even the promising ones in 2011 and 2012 that didn’t really reach their anticipated potentials. Since 2004, when Oregon’s salmon trollers landed 2.9 million pounds of fish, and 2005, when they hauled in 2.6 million pounds, they have endured a federally-declared disaster in 2006, a well-below-average catch in 2007, another federally-declared disaster in 2008, a basically non-existent 2009 season, a somewhat improved, yet quite limited season in 2010, a disappointing 2011, when fish were scarce, despite healthy forecasts, followed by improved, but less than stellar results in 2012.

The cumulative economic effects during that stretch of poor salmon fishing opportunities were substantial, not just for the commercial fishery, but recreational, marine and freshwater fisheries and the communities that depend on them. Commercial salmon fishermen have lost much of the capacity to fish, and wishing and hoping had become standard gear.

Despite the significant improvement of 2013 and this season, it’s nowhere near the fishery’s halcyon days of the 1970s and most of the 1980s, when 2,000 to 4,000 vessels plied the waters trolling for the Pacific Northwest’s signature fish species. Harvests dropped during the early 1990s due to decreases in many stocks and concern for critical natural stocks under both state and federal management and the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), along with escalating allocation conflicts between river and ocean user groups.

Fitzpatrick said the number of vessel owners with salmon permits dwindled from a high of 4,314 in 1980 to slightly more than 1,000 in 2011, due in large part to fishery management efforts, most notably permit restrictions and salmon quotas. In 1980, 3,875 vessels landed salmon – the highest on record. The worst year was 2008, when only 138 vessels landed salmon in the middle of a federally-declared disaster season.

In 1976, salmon fishermen hauled in almost 11 million pounds of salmon worth $14.7 million. By comparison, they landed 499,000 pounds in 2006 valued at $2.7 million, 565,000 pounds in 2007 valued at $2.8 million, only 70,000 pounds in 2008 worth $494,000 and 146,000 pounds in 2009 valued at just $345,000. The numbers rose in 2010 (513,000 pounds worth $2.8 million) and 2011 (403,000 pounds valued at $2.4 million), 2012 and 2013.

This year’s season kept the upward trend alive.

Still, commercial salmon fishermen have become an endangered species themselves. Many are shunning salmon fishing and either turning to other fisheries to maintain their livelihoods or getting out of fishing altogether – an unpalatable decision for most of them. What the future holds remains uncertain, and no one is exactly sure what’s behind the back-to-back seasons uptick, since salmon survival and recovery depends on so many factors, most notably ocean conditions.

The ocean’s Jekyll-and-Hyde personality makes it difficult for fishery managers to make accurate predictions, even in the best of times. But for the third consecutive year, commercial fishermen are harvesting more salmon, and this season is shaping up almost as predicted.

In the Pink

Oregon pink shrimp fishermen are seemingly in the middle of another gigantic season, landing good numbers as predicted by Bob Hannah and Steve Jones from ODFW.

No official numbers were available as of press time, but Jeff Boardman, skipper of the F/V Miss Yvonne, said things were “going really well,” especially in Washington waters, where “a considerable part of Oregon landings” were originating. “The Newport fleet is going up there,” Boardman added. “Oregon is not quite as good as it has been. Washington is going to set a record.”

The long-time commercial shrimper isn’t sure what’s causing the shift to Washington waters, although “they had good volume last year” and fishermen “run toward volume.” Fishermen also got a mid-season price hike.

The season ends October 31, and is seemingly on course to maybe match last year’s catch, according to some fishery managers and market analysts. Last season marked a three-year stretch of near-record production, said Hannah and Jones in their annual pre-season fishery review.

“They did it even with the season opener functionally delayed, as most of the fleet stayed at the dock for nearly three weeks due to price negotiations,” they noted. “Once an acceptable price structure was reached, the fleet still managed to put in 3.25 million pounds by the end of April. The price structure and high catch rates remained fairly constant through the season.’

That translated into 47.63 million pounds in landings in 2013, just 1.5 million pounds less than 2012. It capped the highest cumulative three-season landings total in the fishery’s history. Monthly landings were “far above average” in 2013, with May’s haul of 9.2 million pounds the best May catch total since 1989.

“Monthly totals remained high through the remainder of the season, showing a similar pattern to 2012,” said Hannah and Jones. Sixty-one vessels landed shrimp in Oregon ports last season, down from 64 in 2012. They made 1,017 trips compared to 1,024 in 2012. Average catch per trip was 46,833 pounds in 2013, a new record. Catch-per-trip numbers have risen steadily since 2004, and Hannah and Jones said those increases, especially from 2009 on “reflect the high shrimp abundance available, but also suggest that harvest and processor strategies may be at play.”

Average ex-vessel price in 2013 reached almost 51 cents per pound, just a fraction higher than 2012. Shrimp sold at 30 to 63 cents per pound under a four-tier, split-price structure. Overall ex-vessel value for the landed catch reached $24.2 million, down almost $533,000 from 2012.

“Shrimpers spent more hours fishing in areas off the central Oregon and southern Washington coasts than they did in 2012,” Hannah and Jones stated.

The season prospects “seem very good,” noted Hannah and Jones, “barring an unforeseen environmental shift that severely alters shrimp abundance or distribution.” Indications pointed to “widespread high shrimp abundance” along the coast, with conditions excellent for good hold-over of shrimp. They anticipated enough good-grade shrimp available early in the season (April 1-October 31) for shrimpers “to avoid potential count problems.”

Fishermen said this year’s numbers in terms of vessels and landings are following a trend comparable to the past two seasons, and they expect another stellar season overall.

They also continued their efforts to exclude eulachon smelt – listed in 2012 as threatened under the Endangered Species Act – from their nets.

A commercial fishery started in 1957, the Oregon pink shrimp fleet is considered one of the most consistently valuable commercial trawl fisheries in the state. Centered off the Oregon coast with operations extending from Washington to northern California, the 45-vessel fleet, ranging in length from 50 to 85 feet, works out of Newport, Charleston, and Astoria. Fished from the cold waters of the Pacific, Oregon pink shrimp are – compared to the larger species usually found in supermarkets and restaurants – the real “shrimps” of the shrimp world, with 100 to 160 whole shrimp comprising one pound.

Outlook Upbeat for Alaska Seafood Harvesters, Processors

A new labor report on employment in Alaska’s seafood industry says the harvesting sector in 2013 averaged monthly employment growth not seen since 2000, and predicts continued grow in the processing sector through 2022.

The November edition of Alaska Trends, focused on seafood harvesting and processing jobs, also notes that the six community development quota groups tasked with boosting the economy of 65 villages in Western Alaska had gross revenues of $318 million in 2013, from a variety of sources that included fishing, processing, quota royalties, program revenue, and investment income, and combined net assets for 2013 amounted to $899 million.

Daniel Strong, a research analyst with the Alaska Department of Labor in Juneau, said seafood processing industry employment is projected to grow by 6.7 percent between 2012 and 2022, and the highest-paid processing occupations are expected to grow at nearly twice that rate.

Across all industries in the processing sector, expected growth ranges from a low of 6.9 percent for electrician helpers to 15.3 percent for captains, mates and boat pilots, Strong noted.

Job numbers in the processing sector grew by 2.4 percent in 2013, primarily driven by increased salmon harvest, bringing the year’s monthly average to 8,393 jobs, less than 400 shy of the 2000 level, said Josh Warren, an Alaska Department of Labor economist in Juneau, writing in the state agency’s monthly report on economic trends.

The increase in harvesting and jobs has also produced a larger seasonal swing, Warren said. Alaska’s seafood harvesting has one of the strongest seasonal patterns in the nation, with a difference of about 25,000 jobs between the highest and lowest months.  Winter employment shrank or remained stable in 2013, while peak summer employment reached a record of 25,859 jobs in July.  In June alone, there were 2,500 more harvesters than for the same month in 2012.

Salmon harvesting jobs were the main source of growth in harvesting employment between 2012 and 2013, with a gain of 452 jobs, or 10 percent.

This growth came from a small increase in reported crew sizes by permit holders, as well as more fishing, Warren noted.

Read the complete report online at http://labor.alaska.gov/trends/nov14.pdf

Increased Percentage of Old Red King Crab Attracts More Barnacles

Quotas for Bristol Bay red king crab increased to 9.98 million pounds for the 2014-2015 season, up from 8.6 million pounds a year earlier, good news for harvesters of the fishery known as the deadliest catch.

But a technical memorandum on the 2014 Eastern Bering Sea Continental Shelf Bottom Trawl Survey, notes that 56 percent of the legal-sized male surveyed were new hard shell crabs and 44 percent were old shell and very old shell crabs, with the majority of old shell males caught in central Bristol Bay. 

The older the crab get, the more infrequently they molt, and very old shell crab do not molt, creating a more inviting environmental for barnacles, who cling to the shell, and use their appendages to reach into the water column to draw plankton and detritus into the shell for consumption.

There have been a lot more old shell crab in the last couple of years, notes Bob Foy, director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Kodiak Laboratory.

Old shell and very old shell crabs are more likely to have an abundance of barnacles aboard their shells, making them a less than lucrative catch.

Anecdotal reports from fishermen, a few of which came to the attention of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at Dutch Harbor, voiced concerns of high-grading, the dumping of large quantities of barnacled legal male red king crab.

While high-grading is not illegal, it is a cause of concern for state biologists, who were passing these anecdotal accounts to data collectors on board 20 percent of the vessels harvesting the crab.

Regulations dictate that processors must accept the king crab, even with barnacles from holders of A shares, the individual processing quota shares, but that they don’t have to accept B and C share with barnacles on it.

Jake Jacobsen, executive director of the Intercoop Exchange in Seattle, said that if the fishermen are getting a lot of dirty crab, they are asked by the coop to move to another area, but that all legal king crab landed onto a boat stayed on the boat.

The department has an interest in this, said Heather Fitch, an area management biologist at Dutch Harbor. “The extra mortality is not good for the stock.

“There is no regulation prohibiting high-grading specifically, but that is the excess removal of the stock, so it is counted in the acceptable biological catch.

“We discourage fishermen from doing so and discourage processors from giving incentives to do so.”

Due to extensive high-grading during the 2005-2006 season, the first year the federal crab rationalization plan was in effect, the state ended up reducing the total allowable catch of red king crab by 5 percent the following year, she said.

Harvesters were still engaged in the fishery in late October, with observers on board collecting data, and what data was available was considered preliminary, said Mary Schwenzseier, the state shellfish observer program coordinator at Dutch Harbor.

The jury is still out on whether the percentage of high-grading was more significant than usual this year, and what action the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will take.

Changes Proposed in CCF Regulations

Federal fisheries officials are proposing changes in the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Capital Construction Fund, a program that encourages construction, reconstruction or acquisition of vessels through deferment of federal income taxes.

The goal is to update and make important changes in the regulations, written in the early 1970s, said Connie Barclay, director of NOAA Fisheries Public Affairs.

Major areas of concern for some sectors of the commercial fisheries industry among the proposed changes are twofold.

The first is one that would trim the construction period for vessels constructed or reconstructed under this program from the current 18 months to 12 months.

Such a time limit “would be highly problematic,” said Mark Gleason, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers.

In the NMFS document published in the Federal Register on Sept. 25, NMFS says that since minimum cost requirements for reconstruction have been eliminated, there would be no need for an extended period of time to complete planned projects.

Another of the proposal changes would eliminate a requirement that the minimum cost of a reconstruction project be the lesser of $100,000 or 20 percent of the reconstructed vessel’s acquisition costs to eliminate making excessive capital improvements to vessels based on an arbitrary amount.

Gleason’s concerns were shared by Chad See, executive director of the Freezer Longline Coalition, who said “new vessels don’t get built in 12 months.”

Such changes would take this funding source off the table for companies trying to build new vessels, he said.

His second concern, Gleason said, is a proposed rule change to prohibit using CCF funds for any vessel acquisition, construction or reconstruction that would increase fisheries harvesting capacity, to be consistent with the agency’s larger responsibility of maintaining sustainable fisheries.

Harvesting capacity issues are already covered by federal fisheries regulations programs, and the total allowable catches assigned, he said.

These and other proposed rule changes are outlines in the Federal Register notice of Sept. 25, which is online at https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/09/25/2014-22821/capital-construction-fund-fishing-vessel-capital-construction-fund-procedures

The deadline for comments is Nov. 10.  

Connie Barclay, director of NOAA Fisheries Public Affairs, said all comments would be considered and published on NOAA’s website. The next step would be to publish the final rule, hopefully in January, Barclay said.

The program, established by the Merchant Marine Act of 1970, allows owners and operators of vessels to deposit income from fishing into CCF accounts prior to paying income taxes.  All deferred taxes are eventually recovered upon the sale of the vessel, because the cost basis of the vessel is reduced by the dollar amount of CCF funds used for its purchase or improvements.

BBRSDA Makes Changes in Project Selection Process

The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association has announced changes in

Its method of choosing projects that specifically support its five-year strategic plan for 2013-2018.

In place of its usual call for proposals, the BBRSDA board said this week that they will utilize the expertise within its committees to seek projects meeting identified information gaps and take advantage of strategic opportunities.

The process does not, however, preclude stakeholders from engaging in the committee and board processes that identify and evaluate potential projects, the board noted. Stakeholder input and assistance is welcomed and encouraged, the board said.

Over the past few years, the board has funded a number of very important research projects that are to continue over several years.  These include the multi-year Alaska Department of Fish and Game project that allows for additional counting tower days in five river systems, the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute’s study of Outer Port Heiden section genetics, and a University of Washington study in the Nushagak River that will identify sockeye, and potentially Chinook, salmon spawning areas.

Also new for 2015, the association said, will be a University of Washington study in the Nushagak River to help determine the quantity, quality and distribution of habitat for salmon spawning and rearing.