Home | Fort Bragg

1. Port-at-a-Glance

Fort Bragg and Noyo Harbor are located on California’s northern coast. The land and water where Fort Bragg is located have been important for the Pomo people for thousands of years. In 1857 that the town or Fort Bragg was established as military outpost on the Mendocino Indian Reservation. Soon after the reservation was closed, Fort Bragg became one of the most important timber towns in the region, due to its proximity to the Noyo River. Timber and fishing were mainstays of the local economy. The residents of this remote port have dealt with many economic and ecological challenges: the loss of the timber industry in the early 2000s, the growth of the cannabis industry and the impacts of legalization on the local economy and declines in the port’s primary fisheries.

Fishing has remained one of Fort Bragg’s most important sectors both economically and culturally, although the fisheries on which it has been most dependent have shifted over time. Currently, important fisheries for the port include Dungeness crab, groundfish, salmon, red sea urchin and, more recently, hagfish. Although salmon remains a significant species for local fishers, landings have decreased since the mid-1980s as a result of declining fish returns and more restrictive management measures (except for two brief spikes in 2003 and 2014). The groundfish fishery became more active in the 1960s and 1970s as trawl technologies improved. The port-led the northern red sea urchin industry until ecological and financial disruptions sent the fishery into decline. Groundfish was once an important year-round fishery for the port, however, the West Coast-wide fishery was declared a federal fishery disaster in 2000 following a sharp decline in landings of these species and overcapitalization in the fishery.

Fort Bragg was among the ports most affected by the implementation of the Federal Pacific Coast Groundfish Buyback Program in 2003 to remove trawl vessels from the fishery. Thirteen of the port’s groundfish trawlers were sold, which resulted in a significant decline in landings and caused a contraction of the port’s processing sector. From 2002 to 2021, the number of fish business licenses active in Fort Bragg has decreased by almost half. The number of commercial fishing licenses associated with the port has decreased from 310 in 2000 to 174 in 2021. In 2021, groundfish was the port’s primary fishery by weight and salmon was the top fishery by ex-vessel value. In 2021, commercial landings at Fort Bragg accounted for 3% of California’s total landings.