This chart shows the annual landings of six commercial species with no significant reported recreational landings (though in recent years a significant and growing recreational fishery has developed for swordfish in the Southeast) as a proportion of the highest annual landings for that species in the time series. Note that landings in five of the six fisheries have been trending downwards since 1993.

Using proportional landings allows us to demonstrate the trends of all seven species in one chart in spite of having landings ranging from almost 2 billion to under a million pounds a year