The National Marine Fisheries Service is also working to improve its data on the impacts of recreational fishing. The agency recently announced corrections to its “Fisheries Economics of the United States 2012” report.

The report, which was released this spring, aims to compare recreational and commercial fishing values throughout the country.

At the time it was released, commercial seafood imports were included. Now, the impacts of imported seafood can be sorted out of the commercial impacts, providing a more realistic comparison, according to the agency.

In Alaska, the value of commercial fishing continues to outweigh the value of marine recreational fishing despite the change, but that wasn’t the case elsewhere in the nation.

Nationally, the change shows an overall decline in the value of commercial fisheries in 2012, and that marine recreational fisheries were worth $7.9 billion more than commercial fisheries.

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