Post by SHARK on Apr 21, 2009 21:35:54 GMT 1
HEAVY pressure on North Sea whiting stocks, partly because of the need to avoid cod has meant that one leading fish producer organisation has been forced to suspend whiting catching by all but two of its vessels.
And Mike Park, the executive chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers’ Association, who described the situation as a “disaster,” said today it was clear that the total allowable catch for whiting had fallen too far behind the state of the stock.
Mr Park said the problem with whiting had been caused by a number of factors including bad weather interruptions which had forced the fleet closer inshore, plus skippers’ efforts to avoid cod.
“What we have to acknowledge is that the whiting total allowable catch is not matching available resources. I would say it is about a year behind.”
And while cod recovery was clearly working, there also had to be concerns now over whiting discarding.
Aberdeen Fish Producers’ Organisation chief executive Hamish Gordon confirmed today that they had closed their North Sea whiting fishery for all but two of their 18 vessels. These two vessels had no whiting uptake and had been exempted from closure.
Mr Gordon said that while they had meantime closed the whiting fishery, they were confident it could ultimately be reopened given that 1418 tonnes of whiting for the UK under Hague Preference provisions had not been allocated to anyone up to now.
“If we had got that we would still be fishing, but 700 tonnes has also been held back for the Norway pout fishery.In addition to that we have some swaps whch we have negotiated but which we have not been able to conclude because we have not had our final allocations for this year.”
He added that as well as cod recovery and weather factors, pressure on whiting had also been greater as significant haddock catching had so far failed to materialise.
The whiting quota had also been cut by 17.4% for this year.
Meanwhile some other fish producer organisations are known to be under pressure over whiting which together with the Aberdeen PO’s situation is likely to put the processing sector under more pressure.
And Mike Park, the executive chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers’ Association, who described the situation as a “disaster,” said today it was clear that the total allowable catch for whiting had fallen too far behind the state of the stock.
Mr Park said the problem with whiting had been caused by a number of factors including bad weather interruptions which had forced the fleet closer inshore, plus skippers’ efforts to avoid cod.
“What we have to acknowledge is that the whiting total allowable catch is not matching available resources. I would say it is about a year behind.”
And while cod recovery was clearly working, there also had to be concerns now over whiting discarding.
Aberdeen Fish Producers’ Organisation chief executive Hamish Gordon confirmed today that they had closed their North Sea whiting fishery for all but two of their 18 vessels. These two vessels had no whiting uptake and had been exempted from closure.
Mr Gordon said that while they had meantime closed the whiting fishery, they were confident it could ultimately be reopened given that 1418 tonnes of whiting for the UK under Hague Preference provisions had not been allocated to anyone up to now.
“If we had got that we would still be fishing, but 700 tonnes has also been held back for the Norway pout fishery.In addition to that we have some swaps whch we have negotiated but which we have not been able to conclude because we have not had our final allocations for this year.”
He added that as well as cod recovery and weather factors, pressure on whiting had also been greater as significant haddock catching had so far failed to materialise.
The whiting quota had also been cut by 17.4% for this year.
Meanwhile some other fish producer organisations are known to be under pressure over whiting which together with the Aberdeen PO’s situation is likely to put the processing sector under more pressure.