Some positive signs for the North Sea/Skagerrak cod stocks were suggested when ICES published its scientific advice for the 2011 TACs in that region, but the situation for their Kattegat cousins remains at a critical level.
The Copenhagen-based International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) said there were now more spawning cod in the North Sea/Skagerrak, a positive sign, but that the fishing mortality is still too high, and quotas should be reduced next year.
This year’s agreed Total Allowable Catch (TAC) is 33.600 tonnes; for 2011 ICES suggests less than 18.000 tonnes if the MSY approach is to be applied, or 32.240 if the 2008 management plan is to be followed.
The European Union has decided that the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) principle is to be applied full-out by 2015. The 2008 EU-Norway long-term management plan (LTMP),on the other hand, contains rules that restrict how much TACs can be reduced from one year to another; the very small reduction under that scenario is a result of this.
In the latter case, ICES adds that “all models and scenarios suggest that the management objectives in terms of reduction of fishing mortality specified in the LTMP cannot be achieved in 2011 unless catches are reduced beyond” what the limit on inter-annual variability allows.
As for the Kattegat cod stock, ICES underlines that, with low recruitment, insufficient spawning and too high fishing mortality, the stock is now at its worst level ever. The scientists recommend, for the tenth straight year, no catches of cod at all in Kattegat.
The Council has never followed that zero-catch advice, but the agreed TAC did constantly decrease over the ten-year period, to stay at a mere 379 tonnes for 2010.
A study performed by a Swedish scientist published recently, commissioned by the European Parliament Fisheries Committee, showed how a 70-year trawling ban in the neighbouring much smaller sound between Sweden and Danish Zealand has made fisheries prosper there, while dwindling to almost non-existing levels in the Kattegat.
On other notes, prospects looked good for the North Sea herring, allowing raised quotas, while the situation was less positive for the Western Baltic herring, prompting a recommendation for lowered TACs.
Positive signs were also reported for the North Sea haddock, saithe, sole and plaice stocks, all for which fisheries were now back at sustainable levels.
In a press release from the Swedish Board of Fisheries, Director-General Axel Wenblad noted that Sweden and Denmark last year jointly decided to close or restrict cod fisheries in some protected areas of the Kattegat, and that it now “becomes even more clear that this type of radical measures are necessary”.
Max Cardinale, a Board of Fisheries marine scientist and Sweden’s representative on ACOM the ICES committee that finalises the advice, added that all imaginable efforts now have to be made to save the stock, “before it is too late”.