The Most-Caught Fish in the World

Three species dominate global wild landings, and the ranking has not changed since 2010.

Peruvian anchoveta came first in 2022 at almost 4.9 million tonnes, well down from a 2018 peak above 7.0 million. Alaska pollock second at 3.4 million tonnes. Skipjack tuna third at 3.1 million.

The stability is the striking part. In a system as variable as global fisheries, the same three species have held the top three positions for well over a decade.

Most anchoveta is not food

The largest fishery on the planet mostly produces fishmeal and fish oil, which go into feed for farmed fish, pigs and poultry.

Which produces a loop worth sitting with. Aquaculture overtook wild capture in 2022, and a meaningful share of the feed sustaining farmed carnivorous species comes from the biggest wild fishery in existence. Farming did not decouple from wild stocks. It rerouted the connection through a feed mill.

The swing from 7.0 million tonnes down to 4.9 shows how volatile that supply is. Anchoveta abundance off Peru and Chile tracks the El Nino cycle closely, warm water pushes the fish deeper and disperses them, and the fishery gets closed to protect the stock. Feed costs move accordingly.

Why these three

They share two traits: they school densely, and they sit low on the food chain.

Dense schooling makes industrial capture economic. A purse seine around a compact school lands an enormous quantity for one set, which is a completely different proposition from chasing dispersed fish across open water.

Position in the food web sets the ceiling. Energy is lost at every trophic step, so species feeding near the bottom of the chain support far more biomass than predators do. There is simply more anchoveta in the ocean than there could ever be tuna.

Skipjack is the exception that clarifies the rule. It is a predator, but a small, fast-growing, early-maturing one that reproduces quickly enough to sustain heavy fishing in a way that larger tuna species cannot.

The gap between tonnage and value

Ranking by weight and ranking by money produce different lists.

Anchoveta is worth very little per tonne. Bluefin tuna, which barely registers by volume, commands prices that make individual fish newsworthy. Shrimp and lobster fisheries land modest tonnage at high value.

This distinction drives fishing behaviour in ways the tonnage tables hide. A fishery can be economically important and biologically small, and those are frequently the ones under the most pressure, because the price justifies pursuing a stock well past the point where volume alone would.

What the numbers do not show

Landings data is reported catch. It does not capture discards, where non-target species are thrown back dead, and it does not capture illegal or unreported fishing, which is significant in some regions and by definition unmeasured.

Total capture production has been roughly flat for three decades while fishing effort has risen. Holding output steady by working harder is what a stock at its limit looks like from the outside.

That flatline is the reason aquaculture grew, and the reason the crossover in 2022 happened when it did.