U.S. commercial fishermen landed 9.6 billion pounds of seafood in 2012, valued at $5.1 billion. That averages out across all fisheries to about 53-cents per pound. Those figures were released by NOAA Fisheries on Wednesday.
The figures for 2012 represent a 2.3-percent decrease in poundage and a 3.2-percent decrease in value over 2011, which saw the highest figures ever. However, poundage and value continue to remain higher than the 10-year average.
Alaska led all states in volume of seafood landings, with 5.3-billion pounds, and in dockside value at $1.7-billion.
Louisiana, Virginia, Washington State and California followed in volume, while Massachusetts, Maine, Louisiana and Washington State followed in value.
For the 16th year in a row, Dutch Harbor led the nation in seafood volume, at 752-million pounds landed, with pollock making up 86-percent of that poundage.
Kodiak’s seafood landings, at 393-million pounds, ranked fourth in the nation, behind Dutch Harbor, Empire-Venice, Louisiana, and all of the Aleutian Islands combined.
New Bedford, Massachusetts’ $411-million led the nation in seafood value at the dock, followed by Dutch Harbor’s $214-million and Kodiak’s $170-million.
Other figures in the report show Americans consumed 4.5-billion pounds of seafood in 2012, which averages 14.4-pounds per person. Despite catching twice as much seafood as Americans eat, over 90-percent of the seafood Americans consume is imported.
Jay Barrett is the news director at KMXT in Kodiak.
