On dinner tables across the country, Americans are eating more fish. The United States is responsible for more fish consumption than all other countries, except for China.
An annual National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report shows Americans added almost one pound of fish to their diets in 2015.
For the 19th consecutive year, the port of Dutch Harbor is America’s largest fishing port, hauling in 787 million pounds of seafood, worth $218 million. That’s the most seafood ever brought into one port — and more than 250 million pounds above the next port, Kodiak.
The Dutch Harbor haul is mostly thanks to the large volume of pollock from the Bering Sea, as well as crab and other ground fish.
Frank Kelty was the fisheries analyst for the City of Unalaska, and he said fishing is the community’s main economic engine.
“We have no other main industry,” Kelty said. “Everything feeds off how the fisheries do, and it works its way down through all sectors of the community.”
Although it’s more money than last year, Dutch Harbor’s haul is still behind the nation’s most profitable port, New Bedford, Massachusetts, which took in an estimated $322 million.
As a state, Alaska led the country in total volume and value of fish landings — bringing in three times the money and more than five times the amount of seafood as the next largest state’s catch.
Zoe Sobel is a reporter with Alaska's Energy Desk based in Unalaska. As a high schooler in Portland, Maine, Zoë Sobel got her first taste of public radio at NPR’s easternmost station. From there, she moved to Boston where she studied at Wellesley College and worked at WBUR, covering sports for Only A Game and the trial of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
