The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission

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About the Alaska Crab Rationalization Project:  

Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) is the Data Collection Agent for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Crab Rationalization Program. The purpose of the economic data collection is to aid North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) and NOAA Fisheries Services in assessing the success of this Program and to develop program changes as needed.

The crab rationalization program is novel in a number of respects. NPFMC is interested in ensuring that it will be able to adequately assess the impact of the program on affected parties. Existing data collection programs do not provide the information required to understand the economic performance of crab fishers, let alone to determine how this performance has changed after rationalization or what aspects of these changes are specifically attributable to crab rationalization.

Program Process and Benefits:  

This data collection program will substantially reduce the analytical difficulties that were encountered in the past when attempting to examine the effects of the halibut/sablefish IFQ program and the American Fisheries Act. There are two variations of Economic Data Reports (EDRs): a Historic EDR and an Annual EDR. The first requires submission of historical-based economic data from 1998, 2001, and 2004. Historical EDRs capture pre-program implementation data for comparison to the economics of harvesting and processing before and after program implementation.

The annual EDR would capture economic data on an annual basis at the conclusion of each calendar year’s crab fisheries. Historical EDRs were collected in June and July 2005; the first Annual EDRs will be collected in 2006 for the 2005 crab fisheries. Participation in the data collection program is mandatory for all participants in the BSAI crab fisheries. Any owner or leaseholder of a vessel or plant that harvested or processed crab in any of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab fisheries during the years 1998, 2001, or 2004 is required to submit an historical report for all three years.

Learn More:  

More information about EDRs can be found on the NOAA website. General information about BSAI Crab Rationalization can be found on this NOAA web page.

If you would like to have an Economic Data Report Booklet mailed to you at no cost, please call 1-877-741-8913, or email your request to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . You can also contact the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission at (503) 595-3100.