News Coverage
Demand gone wild
Salmon fishermen are profiting as health-conscious consumers pick ocean-caught over farmed
Published May 4, 2004
CHARLESTON Sitting on the deck of his boat, the Dragonet, salmon fisherman Loren Dixson had to think back to when his teenage daughter was a baby to remember a time when prices for his catch were this good.
"Hannah is 17 now, and it was the year she was born," he said.
Since those high prices in the late 1980s, West Coast salmon fishermen have struggled. The biggest problems started in 1994, when strong El Nino current depleted food in the ocean, drastically reducing salmon landings. Salmon farms in Chile, Norway and Canada filled the gap, driving down prices as they cranked up production.
But in the past two years, campaigns promoting the health, taste and environmental benefits of ocean-caught salmon have nudged prices back up.
Fisherman have developed programs to produce a better fish through careful handling. Scientific studies have found higher levels of PCB contamination in farmed salmon than those in the wild. And new laws are highlighting the origin of salmon for consumers.
Accounting for inflation, the $5.50 a pound Oregon fish buyers paid last week for chinook, the West Coast's premier commercial species, would have been the equivalent of $3.33 in 1987. That's the year Dixson received far better than the average -- $4.50 a pound -- for one memorable boatload in San Francisco.
"It means I actually expect to do reasonably well this year," Gold Beach fisherman Scott Boley said of the price rebound. Boley runs a fish market where he was recently retailing chinook fillets for $9.60 a pound.
Wholesale prices this week dropped to about $3.50 a pound as the California and Washington fleets hit the water and weather improved, but observers expect prices to stay strong all summer.
Higher prices have made some middlemen balky, but strong demand has brought them around, said Scott Adams, production manager for Hallmark Fisheries in Charleston.
"I call a guy up and he'll say, 'I'm not buying fish at that price.' An hour later he calls back and asks if I have any fish left," Adams said. "It's amazing. It goes to show you people want to eat certain things."
Fishermen, of course, still grumble about prices. But not too loudly.
Two years ago, chinook dipped below $1 a pound due to the glut of farmed salmon, which account for 60 percent of the world supply.
"What we have now is an informed public that wants our product," said Daryl Bogardus, skipper of the Pices, tied up across the dock from Dixson's Dragonet.
Laura Anderson, vice president of Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport, has worked with fishermen the past two seasons to handle their fish more carefully to command a higher price. She labels each fish with a photo of the fisherman who caught it.
"I can move as many as I can get," said Anderson. "Plus, there's a lot of competition in the market now. More buyers are coming to Oregon ports to source fish directly."
Last year, EcoTrust, a Portland group that promotes environmentally sustainable economic development, launched its Salmon Nation campaign, calling on seafood lovers to buy ocean-caught fish to protect the environment and promote local economies.
Surveys in Oregon have tracked a steep rise in consumer preference for wild fish, said EcoTrust Vice President Eileen Brady.
In 2002, when asked what salmon they would choose at the grocery or a restaurant, 29 percent said wild salmon, 26 percent farmed salmon, and 35 percent had no preference, according to the survey done by Riley Research Associates of Portland. This year, 58 percent preferred wild salmon, and 10 percent farmed.
"You throw in the PCBs in salmon, with mad cow, with the Asian bird flu, and you have a customer base that's waking up, searching for a healthier quality alternative, and of course wanting to support the local economy," Brady said.
Last fall, environmental groups took out ads in The New York Times and held demonstrations urging consumers to boycott farmed salmon, arguing they pollute the waterways where they are raised in pens, and are tainted by chemicals, antibiotics and dyes.
In January, the journal Science published a study that found increased levels of cancer-causing PCBs in farmed fish over wild fish, adding credence to environmental groups' arguments.
And in 2002, a court ruling required grocery stores to label farmed fish as containing dye to turn the flesh pink. Next fall, federal law will require stores to label fish with their country of origin.
At Higgins restaurant in Portland, chef Greg Higgins will serve only ocean-caught fish. The price of an entree, in turn, has risen to $29 a plate.
"People are paying it," said co-owner Paul Mallory. "They don't think twice."