Commercial fishermen haul in 8.2 billion pounds of seafood in 2010

Commercial fishermen in the US landed 8.2 billion pounds of seafood in 2010 – over 200 million more pounds than the year before.

Their catch was valued at $4.5 billion dollars – the industry as a whole earned about 600 million dollars more than in 2009.

And even though Florida is one of the biggest fishing states in the country, we didn’t even make the top ten list of top seafood ports in the US in 2010.

Commercial fishermen unloaded 515.2 million pounds of fish and shellfish in 2010 at the port of Dutch Harbor-Unalaska, in Alaska, making it the country's top port for landings for the 22nd year in a row.

In fact Alaska has three of the top 10 ports for landings volume and six of the top 10 ports for landings value.

More than half of the seafood Americans eat from U.S. waters is caught in Alaska.

But when it comes to the port that brought in the most money for its landings – that record goes to the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

New Bedford brought in $306 million dollars in seafood in 2010, mainly from sea scallops.

That’s the highest landing value in 30 years for that port.

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