2008 Economic Status of the Groundfish Fisheries Off Alaska
September 26, 2008
The domestic groundfish fishery off Alaska is the largest fishery by volume in the U.S. This report contains detailed information about economic aspects of the fishery, including figures and tables, market profiles for the most commercially valuable species, a summary of the relevant research being undertaken by the Economic and Social Sciences Research Program (ESSRP) at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) and a list of recent publications by ESSRP analysts.
More specifically, the figures and tables in the report provide 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 groundfish fisheries off Alaska, vessel activity, and employment on at-sea processors. Generally, the data presented in this report cover the years 2004 through 2008 but limited catch and ex-vessel value data are reported for earlier years in order to illustrate the rapid development of the domestic groundfish fishery in the 1980s and to provide a more complete historical perspective on catch1.
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 also updates the set of market profiles for pollock, Pacific cod, sablefish, and flatfish published here in the last two years’ reports. These analyses discuss the current state of the markets for these species in terms of pricing, volume, supply and demand. We also discuss trade patterns and market share. Forecasts of the prices and volume of future exports are not included in this year’s report.
We also provide project descriptions and updates for ongoing groundfish-related research activities of the ESSRP at the AFSC. Contact information is included for each of the ongoing projects so that readers may contact us for more detail or an update on the project status. Finally, we have also included a list of publications that have arisen out of our work since 2002.