The single biggest hit to fishermen from the COVID-19 virus is reduced dock prices, according to Alaska and West Coast harvesters, and 98 percent said their businesses have been badly bashed by the pandemic.
That’s based on survey results compiled by Ocean Strategies, a public relations firm that focuses on fisheries that helped profile the Pacific region for a larger federal study.
Nearly 400 fishermen responded to the short, confidential survey launched last November, said senior consultant Hannah Heimbuch of Kodiak.
“NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) uses any information they collect on economics to report to Congress on how the industry is being impacted, the major trends they are seeing, and then that informs the decisions that Congress or other government agencies might make in response to those trends,” she said.
In the survey, 82 percent said fishing is their primary source of income and 91 percent said their revenues have decreased by 15 percent to 100 percent since January 2020. A whopping 70 percent said they stopped fishing last year; 65 percent stopped for three months or less.
Just 18 percent reported being back to full speed of fishing activity compared to 2019, and 63 percent said they did not see any change in the number of crew they employed.
The Alaska/West Coast responses are included in a comprehensive report released last week titled Updated Impact Assessment of the COVID-19 Crisis on the U.S. Commercial Seafood and Recreational For-Hire/Charter Industries January-July 2020 intended to help businesses and communities “assess losses and inform long-term resilience strategies.”
The easy to read report states that global COVID-19 protective measures that began in March contributed to an “almost-immediate” impact on seafood sales. The year started strongly with a 3 percent increase in fish landing revenues; however, they declined each month showing a 19 percent decrease in March to a 45 percent decrease by July.
“This translates to a 29 percent decrease (in revenues) across those 7 months, as compared to 5-year averages and adjusted for inflation,” the report said.
The impacts also are broken out by U.S. regions. A six-page snapshot for Alaska shows that total landings from January through August 2020 were 15 percent below 2019 levels, a drop of 695 million pounds from 4.74 billion pounds to 4.03 billion pounds.
The reductions were due to a 71 percent decline in harvest volume for herring, 45 percent for salmon, a decline of 18 percent for halibut, and 29 percent for Pacific cod compared to 2019 levels.
In contrast, crab, flatfish and rockfish harvests were up 3 percent, 4 percent, and 11 percent, respectively, compared with the 2015-19 period.
The combination of lower catches and decreased fish prices from January through August 2020 pushed down the value of Alaska’s catches by 30 percent from 2019 levels (a decline of $436 million, from $1.48 billion to $1.04 billion).
The largest decreases in value from 2019 included a 67 percent drop for herring, a 61 percent reduction in salmon, a 37 percent drop in halibut revenues, down 30 percent for cod, and a 17 percent decrease in the value of flatfish.
The two bright spots compared with the five year baseline were a 17 percent increase in crab revenues and a 6 percent increase for rockfish.
For the sports charter sector, “reports from the field suggest fishing was “well below normal levels” throughout Alaska, with some in industry estimating between 30-50 percent losses for the season.”
“In the coming months and years, scientists and economists will work to obtain a more complete picture of COVID-19’s impact on U.S. seafood and the Blue Economy,” said NOAA Fisheries Administrator Chris Oliver. “It is our hope that this initial analysis provides a foundation that the industry researchers and planners can draw upon as they plan for the future.”
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