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Alaska's Fishing Industry
Background
With over 3 million lakes, 3,000 rivers and 34,000 miles of coastline, Alaska is one of the most bountiful fishing regions in the world, producing a wide variety of seafood. Five types of salmon, three species of crab, many kinds of groundfish, shrimp, herring and Pacific halibut are all harvested from Alaska. The Alaskan Pollock fishery is the largest fishery in the world, harvesting upwards of 2 billion pounds annually. The Alaska salmon industry is the only and largest salmon industry in the world to be certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. Alaska’s state fish, the King salmon, can weigh up to 100 pounds. The state marine mammal is the bowhead whale.
Alaska is the only state to have coastlines on three different seas: Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. Fifty percent of the nation’s commercially harvested fish come from Alaska, nearly four times more than the next largest state. Eight of Alaska's ports consistently rate in the top 30 U.S. ports in terms of volume and value of seafood delivered. Dutch Harbor-Unalaska and Kodiak have consistently ranked as the top ports in the nation in terms of seafood value and pounds harvested.
Seafood has been and remains Alaska’s top export commodity. In 2007, the value of the state’s seafood exports was the second highest ever at $1.98 billion, a 1.9 percent decrease from the previous record year. This amounted to 51 percent of the state’s total exports. Japan was Alaska’s largest customer of seafood, accounting for $588 million of Alaskan seafood exports, a decrease of 19 percent from 2006. Exports to China increased 27.1 percent to $411 million while exports to Korea decreased 14 percent to $306 million. The ratio of total value to total volume for seafood exports increased in 2007 over 2006.
The vast fishery resources of Alaska are of tremendous importance to the economies of the state and the nation. In recent years, commercial fishermen have landed over 5 billion pounds of fish and shellfish annually worth over $1 billion. These resources are self-renewing if properly managed, and it is the mission of both state and federal fishery management agencies to maximize the production of seafood and economic benefits for generations to come.
Many Alaskans rely heavily on their fisheries for subsistence. Fish comprises 60 percent of subsistence foods taken each year and 95 percent of rural households consume subsistence-caught fish.
Facts & Economic Impact
- The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is forecasting a total harvest of approximately 137 million salmon in 2008, making this year the 18th largest harvest since 1960. The total harvest is expected to be comprised of an estimated 672,000 chinook salmon, 47.1 million sockeye salmon, 4.4 million coho salmon, 66 million pink salmon and 18.7 million chum salmon.
- Both the two largest pink salmon producing areas in the state, Southeast and Prince William Sound, are expected to have modest returns in 2008 and are the reasons the total Alaskan pink salmon harvest could be the smallest harvest since 1992. In contrast, the sockeye and chum salmon harvest in the state is expected to be up in 2008. Bristol Bay is anticipating one of its larger sockeye harvests in recent years and the overall statewide sockeye harvest is expected to be among the top ten since 1960.
- Over 5.9 billion pounds of fish and shellfish worth at least $1.4 billion were harvested in Alaska waters in 2006. This was the highest exvessel value since 1999 and the highest value in the past ten years. The total exvessel value comprises $346 million from salmon, $148 million from shellfish, $164 million from halibut, $8 million from herring and $758 million from groundfish.
- Preliminary estimates for 2007 indicate commercial fishermen harvested 212 million salmon, which had an estimated total value of $374 million. The harvest was the fourth largest since statehood, about 33 million fish above the preseason forecast and above the most recent ten-year average of 164 million fish.
- The preliminary statewide total exvessel value of the 2007 salmon harvest was nearly $28 million higher than the final exvessel value in 2006, and significantly higher than the most recent ten-year average of $277 million.
- Bristol Bay’s sockeye salmon harvest of 29.5 million fish was the tenth largest since 1893. The preliminary exvessel value of $106 million was slightly lower than the final 2006 Bristol Bay sockeye value of $108 million.
- The statewide 2007 pink salmon harvest of 143 million fish was the third largest since statehood. It compares to the all-time record harvest of 161 million fish in 2005, and is well above the long term historical average of 64.8 million fish. The statewide chum harvest of 17.3 million fish ranks within the top 10 harvests of all time, with an exvessel value of $39.5 million, compared to the most recent ten-year average of $32 million.
- The 2007 Norton Sound coho salmon harvest of 126,000 fish ranks second only to the 2006 record harvest of 131,000 fish. In the Port Clarence District, there was a commercial salmon fishery, targeting sockeyes, for the first time since 1966.
- Recent salmon returns to the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region provided further indications that salmon stocks in northwestern Alaska are recovering from a period of poor productivity that resulted in some closures of the region’s commercial and even subsistence fisheries.
- In recent years, the fishing industry generated more than 49,000 jobs. However, many of these jobs were of short seasonal duration, ranging from one week to several months. On a monthly average adjusted basis, there were 6,700 direct jobs in Alaska attributed to the fishing industry, generating nearly $1 billion in gross earnings.
- Fish harvesting and processing combined accounted for six percent of all jobs in Alaska. Alaska residents were responsible for approximately 40 percent of the total industry harvest value and 20 percent of the volume was captured by Alaskans.
- Fishing is the core economy for much of coastal Alaska where fish harvesting and processing often provide the only significant opportunities for private sector employment and where fisheries taxes are the largest source of local government revenues.
- Salmon generate more jobs than any other fishery, but in terms of value and volume of the catch, the state’s largest fishery is groundfish where a fairly small number of boats catch an enormous amount of fish, predominantly Pollock.
- Southwestern Alaska has had the largest share of fish harvesting employment, at nearly 44 percent. It’s also the region that suffered the steepest loss from 2000 to 2002, a 25 percent decline in employment. Of more than 900 jobs lost over those two years, 83 percent were in the salmon fishery.
- Revenues generated by the fishing industry in 2007 totaled more than $65 million to the State of Alaska. These revenues ranged from fish processing and corporate taxes to fishery resource landing taxes, license fees, and seafood marketing assessments.
- There are about 7,000 active fishing permit holders in Alaska and at least 2,800 of those had Alaska wage and salary employment.
- The Community Development Quota (CDQ) is a unique fishery management system that allocates a portion of the total allowable catch for all federally-managed Aleutian Island and Bering Sea fishery species to eligible communities in Western Alaska for use in community development. Since its 1992 inception, CDQ has injected over $200 million into Western Alaska and generated over $45 million in wages, education and training benefits.
Web Links
Sources
- Alaska Department of Fish & Game
- Alaska Department of Labor
- Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute
- World Trade Center Alaska
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