Fishing.

• Position: Inside Alaska Industry

It's nothing to squawk about when Tyson Foods, the world's biggest chicken producer, announces that it wants to move into Alaska's salmon market. In fact, after Tyson officials toured Alaska in late January, the state's fish industry fairly crowed with excitement.

John Tyson, vice chairman of operations, announced that the Arkansas-based food giant is already conducting tests on salmon nuggets and burgers. In a few years time, the company hopes to have a rainbow of easy-to-make seafood products on the market.

In preparation to enter the Alaska fishing industry, last year the company plunked down $212 million for two fish giants: Arctic Alaska Fisheries Corp., a Seattle-based firm that runs Alaska's biggest bottom-fishing fleet, and Louis Kemp Seafoods, America's largest manufacturer of imitation lobster and crab products.

Tyson Foods, also a marketer of beef, pork, vegetables and ethnic foods, enjoyed sales of $4 billion in 1991. The company hopes to double its revenues by 1995, looking to fish sales to bring in $300 to $500 million a year.

Looking into the industry's troubled waters to predict this year's catch:

* Are tanner crabs rebounding? During a 24-hour opening in January, fishers hauled in 530,000 pounds of the species in southern Cook Inlet -- the best catch since 1988. The harvest prompted predictions that depressed stocks are slowly coming back. King and dungeness crab levels are still too low for commercial fishing.

* A large return of pink salmon -- between 11.5 million and 28.2 million -- is forecast for Prince William Sound this...