Inside Alaska industry.

• Author: Woodring, Jeannie
• Position: Directory

Facts and figures from around the state.

FISHING

IFQs for Sale. Don't fret if you haven't received an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) for Alaska halibut and black cod because now you can buy one.

In late November, about 2,350 fishermen in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest received IFQ certificates for these fisheries, set to become effective in March. Another 3,000 certificates may be mailed out in the next year. Each IFQ is based on the fisherman's best five-year harvest of halibut and black cod from 1984 to 1990.

After the IFQ idea was upheld by a federal judge in December, the rush to purchase individual certificates hit Alaska ports. According to Bruce Martinson, general manager of Permit Masters of Seattle, "We're seeing both halibut and black cod prices escalating in Southeast and Central Gulf areas, where there's a majority of sea-craft vessels. Everybody wants to fish close to home, so people are trying to consolidate shares close to where they live. That drives prices up."

Martinson says he's seen halibut quotas selling in the range of $5 to $8.50 per pound, and black cod IFQs running from $7 to $8.25 a pound.

To buy one of these IFQ certificates, you can turn to banks for 20 percent of the financing and hit your own pockets for the rest of the funds.

Fish Forecasts. Up on the Kenai River, where state researchers predicted a red salmon crash would start last summer and continue for a few years, there's a hint of good news.

"The crash still may happen," says Jeff Fox, a research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish & Game's commercial fish division, "but now it's looking like the smolt-counting techniques we used are not as good as we thought they were."

As a result, more fish returned last summer than estimated, and the crash is at least temporarily on hold. Fish & Game predicts a run of 3.9 million reds in 1995 for upper Cook Inlet, with 3.2 million reds coming into the Kenai River. Commercial red harvest levels are 2.7 million this summer for the upper Cook Inlet, up from a harvest level of zero predicted a year ago.

New Uses for Old Species. All the innovative new ideas for using fish bring glimmers of hope for Alaska's beleaguered fishing industry. A few of these ideas include: using arrowtooth flounder powder, manufactured by International Seafoods of Kodiak, in baking; marketing Alaskan Arctic char to compete with the fish-farmed Arctic char currently marketed nationally by Iceland; processing ready-to-use herring roe...