Fish School #2: Where does most of the fish in the U.S. come from?
Hint: Alaska
It’s time!
We’re going to start working our way around the U.S. to tell you about fisheries in the 8 regions where the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act set up Regional Fishery Management Councils. In our regional series, we’ll do 4-6 posts featuring fisheries, fishing communities, changemakers, artists, chefs, and other people inspired by the sea to familiarize you with seafood from each region in the United States.
First up is the heavyweight, or as Senator Sullivan likes to call it, “the superpower of seafood” – the North Pacific!
The North Pacific region only includes the waters off Alaska. For this reason, North Pacific and Alaska are synonymous. We’re going to just say Alaska for ease.
We’re using our introduction to Alaska as a Fish School post to answer the question “Where does most of the fish in the U.S. come from?” because the answer to that question is “Alaska.”
Although fishing communities and companies are as diverse in Alaska as in any other part of the U.S., the thing you need to know is that fishing there is BIG BUSINESS. Billions of pounds of seafood, worth several billion dollars, are caught in Alaska each year. Most of the information in this post is from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute - a partnership between the State of Alaska and the Alaska seafood industry that helps position the state’s seafood products in the global market. There is a large and coordinated effort around marketing Alaskan seafood, similar to marketing for other U.S. commodities, because fishing is so meaningful to the Alaska economy.
Here are some fast facts about Alaska seafood:
Alaska is the top U.S. seafood producer. In 2022 (and for many years in the past), Alaska produced more than 60 percent of the wild seafood caught in the U.S., which is more than all other states combined. Alaska is the breadbasket (captain’s platter?) of our country.
Alaska (one single U.S. state!) produced 1.3% of the GLOBAL seafood harvest. If Alaska were a country, it would be the 8th largest seafood producer in the world.
In Alaska, the seafood industry directly employs more workers than any other private sector industry. It is the second largest creator of labor income in Alaska after the oil-and-gas industry.
What fish are caught in Alaska?
Fishermen catch five species of salmon, several kinds of whitefish (e.g., Alaska pollock, Pacific cod, halibut, sablefish, rockfish, sole), and several kinds of shellfish (like snow and king crab) in Alaska. In this post, we’ll focus on a couple of these - Alaska pollock (the largest by volume) and salmon (the largest by value).
Pollock
Around a third (!) of the seafood caught in the U.S. in 2022 was Alaskan pollock (2.8 billion pounds pollock out of 8.4 billion pounds of commercial seafood).
You’ve probably had Alaskan pollock before. It is a mild, versatile, flaky white fish. It is available pretty much everywhere. It is the fish used in most fish sticks. It is in the surimi (imitation crab) in your California roll. The yellow bag of Gorton’s seafood in your seafood aisle is probably pollock. McDonald’s uses wild-caught Alaska Pollock for its famous Filet-O-Fish sandwich. The U.S. government committed to purchasing $50 million of Alaskan pollock to food nutrition assistance programs across the country, including schools, to both support the Alaska fishing industry and to encourage domestic consumption. This partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture to purchase Alaskan seafood has been in place for around two decades.
For so many reasons, pollock is a big deal in Alaska. We’re giving you unrequested permission to confidently eat it. It is an abundant resource that is third-party verified for sustainability through Certified Seafood International (formerly Responsible Fisheries Management). Both the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers are great resources for recipes and sustainability information if you want more details.
Pacific Salmon
For those who haven’t been to Alaska or the U.S. West Coast, there aren’t words to describe the unmatched ecological, cultural, and spiritual importance of Pacific salmon. Alaska is one of the world’s last great strongholds for healthy stocks of wild Pacific salmon and intact salmon-producing ecosystems. Most consumers see and eat Atlantic salmon, which is primarily farmed and largely does not exist in the wild anymore. Pacific salmon are mostly wild-caught, and have a distinct deep red color that comes from its wild diet.
Salmon are a keystone species, which is defined as a species that “has influence on its environment disproportionate to its abundance.” Pacific Wild describes how each stage of the salmon life cycle supports other creatures:
Pacific salmon are mostly anadromous, meaning they are born in freshwater, migrate to the ocean, and then migrate back to freshwater, spawn and die immediately after. On their journey to the ocean, more than 50 percent of their diet is insects which fall into streams from surrounding tree canopies. Juvenile salmon are the primary insect predator in aquatic environments; however, when they die their carcasses support over 60 species of insect. When salmon return to their native streams to spawn, their energy-rich carcasses and eggs are consumed by a variety of predators in coastal watersheds, including wolves, bears, and scavenging birds.
This amazing book, The Salmon in the Trees by Amy Gulick, discusses the unique ecosystem of Alaska's Tongass National Forest, where trees grow salmon, and salmon grow trees!
"...what if I told you that the trees are here, in part, because of the salmon? That the trees that shelter and feed the fish, that help build the fish, are themselves built by the fish?"
~ Carl Safina, essayist for Salmon in the Trees
While pollock leads in volume, salmon leads in value, with a 2022 processed value of $2.02 billion dollars.
Here’s a handy trick for remembering the five salmon species (chum, sockeye, king, silver, and pink).
[This is Aja – I learned this on a hatchery field trip I took with my daughter’s 4th grade class and haven’t stopped telling it to people since.]
We will talk about salmon over and over again on Fish Forward, but welcome your specific questions if you’d like us to explore anything in detail while we’re covering Alaska and the West Coast.
Many stocks of Alaskan salmon are healthy and third-party verified for sustainability through Certified Seafood International, the Marine Stewardship Council, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program.
What kinds of businesses and communities does Alaska seafood support?
Commercial fishing in Alaska comes in a lot of different forms, from small-scale family fishing businesses that operate a gillnetter for salmon to large-scale industrial fishing for pollock. Here’s a few of the ways the bounty of the sea gets to you from Alaska.
Industrial Scale Fishing
Alaska is a powerhouse of seafood volume in part because of industrialized fishing. Large vessels, some as long as a football field (over 350 ft), house ~125 employees and are equipped with a full factory to fillet, freeze, and package fish.
Family Businesses/Independent Harvesters
Independent harvesters are individuals and businesses that commercially harvest fish and shellfish. These harvesters may work independently as captains or crew members on their own vessels or as part of a larger fleet. Vessels in this category can range from around 30 ft with a couple crew to 125 ft with around 7-10 crew.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game produced this handy 2 pager on the types of commercial fishing vessels in Alaska.
Other seafood harvest categories that don't reach commercial markets
You should know about another critical harvesting strategy in Alaska — subsistence harvesting. This strategy doesn’t contribute to overall U.S. seafood consumption, but is still important for U.S. citizens. Subsistence harvesters are rural residents or a member of an Alaska Native tribe who fish for personal or family consumption as food or customary trade.
Alaska is the only state where the subsistence use of fish and game is given the highest-priority for consumptive use. This happened when Congress passed a priority subsistence law in 1980 for federal lands in Alaska in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).
Finally, people also fish in Alaska for fun! Recreational fishing (or sport fishing) occurs around the U.S., but people travel from around the world to Alaska for recreational fishing trips because of the unparalleled beauty of the state.
What else should we know about seafood in Alaska?
While Alaska is known for its volume of seafood, there’s also ongoing work focusing on value for lower volume species like Pacific cod, halibut, sablefish, and crab. Check out work by NW Sablefish and The Quality Line.
It’s the job of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, NOAA Fisheries (Alaska Region and Alaska Fisheries Science Center), and Alaska Department of Fish and Game to keep Alaska’s fisheries healthy and sustainable. The resources on their websites dive deeper into specific fisheries and issues. One of the pillars of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which turns 50 next year, is the creation of the Fishery Management Councils around the country as a stakeholder driven, participatory process. We encourage you to engage with your local Council. Here’s a handy resource guide for engaging in the North Pacific Fishery Management Council process.
Stick with us for the rest of our Alaska series, where we’ll share:
Tips on sourcing Alaska seafood
More recipes!
Stories from people who fish in Alaska.
What else would you like us to feature in our Alaska series?
Great overview! Thanks!