Elucidating a misperception

          The conventional wisdom among those recreational fishing advocates who are more interested in increasing their share of the fisheries pie than in actually understanding what's going on in our coastal waters is that. For example, Florida Sportsman publisher Karl Wickstrom has written "there is a mountain of information saying commercial fishing is the cause of fish depletion," and, according to Recreational Fishing Alliance government affairs director Gary Caputi, “it is the extensive expansion of commercial landings that has caused overfishing. In the past 22 years the commercial harvest has expanded by 57.8 percent, while the recreational catch has declined by 23 percent."

          While we're sure that Mr. Wickstrom, Mr. Caputi and their colleagues know how to excite their constituents, they apparently aren't that familiar with what's going on in our domestic fisheries. While it's true that domestic commercial landings have increased in the last several decades (see the frst chart below), all of that growth has been due to the dramatic increase in Alaska's landings (second chart). In fact, if you consider total domestic landings minus Alaska's landings, there is a decrease of approximately 20% between 1984 and 2003 (third chart).  

Chart I

Chart II

Chart III