This publication is a preliminary report for 2003 on commercial and recreational fisheries of the United States with landings from the U.S. territorial seas, the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and on the high seas. This annual report provides timely answers to frequently asked questions.
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Information in this report came from many sources. Field offices of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), with the generous cooperation of the coastal states, collected and compiled data on U.S. commercial landings and processed fishery products.
The NMFS Fisheries Statistics Division in Silver Spring, MD, managed the collection and compilation of recreational statistics, in cooperation with various States and Interstate Fisheries Commissions, and tabulated and prepared all data for publication. Sources of other data appearing in this publication are: U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
Data on U.S. commercial landings, employment, prices, production of processed products, and recreational catches are preliminary for 2003. Final data will be published in other NMFS Current Fishery Statistics publications.
The Fisheries Statistics Division of NMFS takes this opportunity to thank states, industry, and foreign nations who provided the data that made this publication possible. Program leaders of the field offices were: Gregory Power, Scott McNamara, and Gene Steady for New England, Middle Atlantic, and Chesapeake; Scott Nelson, U.S. Geological Survey, Great Lakes States; David Gloeckner, Guy Davenport, and Maggie Williams for the South Atlantic and Gulf States; Patricia J. Donley, California; David Hamm, Hawaii and Pacific Islands; John K. Bishop, Oregon and Washington; and Robert Ryznar and Camille Ruse of the Alaska Fisheries Information Network for Alaska.
The time series of U.S. catch by species and distance from shore included in this year’s “Fisheries of the U.S.” is estimated by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
As in past issues of this publication, the units of quantity and value are defined as follows unless otherwise noted: U.S. landings are shown in round weight (except mollusks which are in meat weight); quantities shown for U.S. imports and exports are in product weight, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census; the value of the U.S. domestic commercial landings is exvessel; in the Review Section on important species, deflated exvessel prices are shown. The deflated value was computed using the Gross Domestic Products Implicit Price Deflator using a base year 2000; the value for U.S. imports is generally the market value in the foreign (exporting) country and, therefore, excludes U.S. import duties, freight charges and insurance from the foreign country to the United States; the value for exports is generally the value at the U.S. port of export, based on the selling price, including inland freight, insurance, and other charges. Countries and territories shown in the U.S. foreign trade section are established for statistical purposes in the Tariff Schedules of the United States Annotated (International Trade Commission) and reported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
The Fisheries Statistics Division wishes to provide the kinds of data sought by users of fishery statistics, and welcomes comments or suggestions that will improve this publication.
Address all comments or questions to:
Fisheries Statistics Division, (F/ST1)Members of the Office of Science and Technology in Silver Spring who helped with this publication were: Rob Andrews, Nicole Bartlett, Daryl Bullock, Tina Chang, , Rita Curtis, Lauren Dolinger Few, Josanne Fabian, Brad Gentner, Tim Haverland, Steven Koplin, Elizabeth Pritchard, Tom Sminkey, David Sutherland, Glen Taylor, William Uttley, David Van Voorhees, Lelia Wise, and Patty Zielinski.
The entire publication is available for download or you may view individual chapters:
This page was last modified November 17, 2004