Great Lakes Commercial Fisheries

While deeply rooted in the historical legacy of the Great Lakes, the commercial fishing industry has dynamically evolved through advances and innovation in gear and vessels, processing, distribution of commercial products, and development of markets.  Concurrently, fishers have faced changing environmental conditions leading to fluctuations in fish populations, as well as changes in regulation and management of the various fisheries.  Although early commercial fisheries were primarily local operations that concentrated in near shore areas, commercial fishers of today use increasingly sophisticated technologies and gear to conduct their business.  Economically overall, when adjusted for inflation, dockside values of U.S. and Canadian commercial yields have declined over the past several decades. Dockside value of U.S. commercial yields peaked in 1952 with an estimated inflation-adjusted value of $152 million (USD), which is more than 10 times the value of dockside yields in 2006. Inflation-adjusted dockside value of Canadian commercial yields peaked at $83 million (CAD) in 1988 with the lowest inflation adjusted dockside value of $31 million (CAD) in 2004.  Management of the commercial fisheries in the Great Lakes has been fraught with conflict between state, provincial, federal, Native American tribal, and First Nation Aboriginal agencies and communities with management authority over various regions of the Great Lakes.  Primary authority to regulate commercial fisheries on the Great Lakes lies with state and provincial governments, however recognition and reassertion of tribal fishing rights yielded several consent decrees or litigation recognizing the rights of Native American tribes and First Nation communities to fish and manage or co-manage fisheries in treaty-ceded waters.  In many instances, the recognition and reassertion of these rights has resulted in cooperative and collaborative management processes that have advanced the knowledge of fisheries management in the Great Lakes.  Across the lakes, several different approaches are used to determine harvest levels and the different fractions of the catch to be allocated to commercial, recreational, state-licensed, provincial-licensed, or tribal-licensed fishers. Commercial harvest is limited either by regulation of commercial fishing effort or evaluated based on statistical models that project future stock abundance and implement explicit harvest policies that govern fishing effort at certain population levels.  While issues of invasive species, fluctuating environmental conditions, and continuing economic issues loom large, many successes of coordinated fisheries management, species and stock recoveries, and novel approaches to fisheries management issues reflect positively for the future of commercial fisheries in the Great Lakes.