1999 Alaska Sablefish Longline Survey Report

On September 5, 1999, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC), completed the 21 st annual longline survey of sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) resources of the upper continental slope of Alaska (Figure 1). This survey was designed to continue the time series (1979-94) of the Gulf of Alaska portion of the Japan-U.S. cooperative longline survey that was discontinued after 1994. In the NMFS survey the Gulf of Alaska has been sampled annually since 1987, the eastern Aleutian Islands biennially since 1996, and the eastern Bering Sea biennially since 1997. The Gulf of Alaska and eastern Bering sea were sampled in 1999.