What relative seafood prices can tell us about the status of stocks

Changes in the distribution of seafood prices can provide useful insights into the availability of different species to fishermen and to fish markets. We propose a log-relative-price-index (LRPI) and demonstrate how such a concept might be useful for exploring long-term changes in wild fish communities as a result of intensive exploitation. We estimate the LRPI for 26 fish species in the Celtic Sea (UK) and for 33 species on Italian fish markets. In both systems the LRPI changed significantly during recent decades, and in the Celtic Sea this probably resulted from a decline in the availability of high trophic level target species such as cod and hake as well as an increase in the availability of low trophic level pelagic species. By contrast, the LRPI of Italian fishes remained relatively constant from 1972 to 1980, but declined thereafter as a result of widespread expansion in fin-fish aquaculture, and a consequential increase in the supply, and hence decrease in the price of high trophic level fish such as seabass and seabream.