2004 Economic Status of the Groundfish Fisheries off Alaska
September 26, 2004
The domestic groundfish fishery off Alaska is an important segment of the U.S. fishing industry. This report contains figures and tables which summarize various aspects of the economic performance of the fishery. Generally, data are presented for the domestic groundfish fishery for 2000 through 2004. Limited catch and ex-vessel value data are reported for earlier years in order to depict the rapid development of the domestic groundfish fishery in the 1980s and to provide a more complete historical perspective on catch. Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) is not included in data for the groundfish fishery in this report because for management purposes halibut is not part of the groundfish complex.
The report provides estimates of total groundfish catch, groundfish discards and discard rates, prohibited species bycatch and bycatch rates, the ex-vessel value of the groundfish catch, the ex-vessel value of the catch in other Alaska fisheries, the gross product value (F.O.B. Alaska) of the resulting groundfish seafood products, the number and sizes of vessels that participated in the Alaska groundfish fisheries, vessel activity, and employment on at-sea processors.
In addition, this report contains data on some of the external factors which, in part, determine the economic status of the fisheries. Such factors include foreign exchange rates, the prices and price indexes of products that compete with products from these fisheries, domestic per capita consumption of seafood products, and fishery imports.
This report concludes with an appendix that summarizes the goals and ongoing research activities of the Economics and Social Science Research Program at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and provides a list of publications that have arisen out of our work. We have included contact information for each of the ongoing projects so that readers may contact us for more detail or an update on the project status.
Finally, it should be noted that the estimates in this report are intended both to provide information that can be used to describe the Alaska groundfish fisheries, and to provide industry and others an opportunity to comment on the validity of these estimates.