Fish Stocks On the Up and Up
Most major Scottish fish stocks have increased in size in recent years, while levels of exploitation have fallen significantly.
Those facts are highlighted in a new report from the NAFC Marine Centre UHI in Shetland: Trends-in-Fish-Stocks-2016.pdf. The report summarises data on fish stock sizes and levels of exploitation that were published last year by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
These data show that some of the main whitefish stocks of importance to Scottish fishermen, including cod, saithe, megrim and ling have increased in size in recent years, while stocks of hake and plaice have seen very substantial increases. Stocks of herring and mackerel are also at relatively large sizes, despite some fluctuations in recent years.
Report author, Dr Ian Napier commented that: "Two general trends are apparent from these ICES data: The size of most whitefish stocks have increased over the last decade, in some cases by substantial amounts. And the level of exploitation of most stocks has declined over the same period, again by substantial amounts in some cases. The size of the North Sea cod stock, for example, is now at a similar size to that in the 1960s, prior to the gadoid outburst, while the plaice stock has increased four-fold and the hake stock almost 10-fold over the last decade."
The full report is available at: www.nafc.uhi.ac.uk/fish-stocks (pdf file) or from NAFC's Shetland Fisheries Statistics web page: www.nafc.uhi.ac.uk/fish-stats
See the latest ICES advice on the state of fish stocks.
For more information, please contact: Dr Ian Napier, Senior Policy Adviser, NAFC Marine Centre UHI: 01595 772000, or ian.napier@uhi.ac.uk