Seafood numbers for B.C. published

Odd Grydeland

The good news is that the wholesale value of seafood produced in British Columbia in 2012 was CAD$1.18 billion (~US$ 1.13 billion, €836.4 million). The bad news is that this is down by 14.8% from the year before. The corresponding harvest value was similarly down by 12.4%- from 264,600 tonnes in 2011 to 231,700 tonnes last year. About two third of this drop in production can be attributed to the reduced output of salmon- both farmed and wild. Here’s how the numbers stack up:

1 CAD$ ~ €0.71

The total drop in salmon output was thus about20% in 2012 compared with 2011, with a corresponding reduction in wholesale value of 17%. Farmed salmon represented some 89 per cent of B.C.’s total salmon harvest in 2012, and of that about 83% was Atlantic salmon, which again was 30 per cent of the total seafood harvest.

The main reason for the drop in catches of wild salmon is the fact that even years are typically low in returns of pink salmon, with harvests of only about 1,200-1,300 tonnes in 2012 and 2010 respectively, while some 9,100 tonnes of this fish were caught in 2011. There were also no openings for the commercial harvest of Fraser River Sockeye salmon in 2012. For the province as a whole, the commercial sockeye salmon fishery saw a total of 20,000 tonnes being caught in 2010, but only 3,100 tonnes in 2011 and 2,100 tonnes last year. There is, however also an additional fishery where aboriginal fishers can catch salmon and other fish for “food, social and ceremonial” purposes, and this fishery is typically targeting sockeye salmon and not included in commercial catch statistics.

With respect to the reduced output of farmed salmon, there were a number of reasons for this reduction;

• One of the main producers of Atlantic salmon had deliberately reduced its smolt output over the past couple of years ago during a period of depressed prices. This will result in further reduced volumes this year
• A second company experienced some serious fish health problems in its hatchery and smolt rearing facility during the same time, and it also had to depopulate one site due to a diagnosis of the IHN virus which triggered a depopulation order issued by government authorities
• The third major producer also had an experience with the finding of IHN virus at two of its farms- one of which had fish scheduled to be harvested in 2012/2013

All of the main salmon farming companies operating in B.C. are currently working on strategies to increase production.