Alaska Sablefish Longline Survey Reports

Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) are a commercially important fish species in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Found along the upper continental slope, in Alaska they are caught primarily by longlines. Catches in the Alaskan EEZ have averaged 15,000 mt in recent years with an annual value of about $100 million.

Alaska

Action shot of sablefish caught during a longline survey

The Alaska Sablefish Longline survey was designed to study the relative number and size of commercially important groundfish species such as sablefish, Greenland turbot, and Pacific cod, as well as other groundfish species. The survey also includes other data collection and tagging activities for scientific research. The reports below include survey results since 1999.

Sablefish are a commercially important fish species in the northeast Pacific Ocean. They're found along the upper continental slope and are caught primarily by longlines. Sablefish catches in the Alaskan Exclusive Economic Zone have averaged 15,000 metric tons in recent years with an annual value of about $100 million.

Below are Alaska Sablefish Longline survey reports, beginning in 1999. These surveys were designed to continue the time series from 1979 to 1994 of the Gulf of Alaska portion of the Japan–United States cooperative longline survey, which was discontinued after 1994. NOAA Fisheries has surveyed the Gulf of Alaska annually since 1987, the eastern Aleutian islands biennially since 1996, and the eastern Bering Sea biennially since 1997.