Braced for a full-on #FishyFriday gale tonight courtesy of storm Arwen.

All but the biggest boat in the fleet are due back in port today as the first of the winter's storm headed down from the north...

a handful of inshore boats piled in with fish like these superb red ullet...

while the two beam trawlers popped ashore fish like a brace of brill...

as ever miserable looking turbot...

John Dory...

ray...

and a few squid, one is without the vey fragile brown film that cover them...

a 'git louster' of a ling...

the thinking fish of the sea, ever-quizzical looking red gurnards...

and plenty of megrim soles...

Dover soles a-plenty...

and monk tails...

and the biggest plaice of the day courtesy of young Jimmy on the Billy Rowney...

the handliners braved the wind to land mackerel...

and a few line-caught bass...

one of the last netters to land was the Govenek of Ladram...

boxes coming ashore under the watchful eye of skipper Robert Goddard...

as the crew rush their week's haul into the chill fridge...

the harbour's Cornish flag will fly at half-mast in respect of Billy Stevenson whose funeral service will take place in the harbour on December the 3rd...

he no doubt would have had his binoculars trained on the Trevessa IV as she headed for the fish market

possibly even offering suggestions over the radio on the best approach to take before they land...

with young Dan working the landing gear...

his brother-in-law has the Enterprise away this trip, the only Newlyn boat still at sea during storm Arwen currently fishing south of the Scillys, even this far south the winds hit Force 10 during the night, so it's a relatively calm force 9 by Saturday morning.

Irish Fisheries Data Collection

 

Irish waters contain some of the most productive fishing grounds in Europe. Marine Institute scientists collect information to help build a picture of the current state of each fish stock. This is then used for future management and to identify research needs.

Vacancy at W Stevenson & Sons Ltd, Newlyn.

Mid-week market of quality inshore and net fish.

The inshore biats fed this morning's market with fish like these brill...

red gurnard...

a few Dover sole...

the odd monk tail...

a few different species of ray...

and flats like plaice...

while the netter Ygraine  made a good landing of MSC Certified hake...

Tome on the Harvest Reaper continued to pick up a handful of squid...

and the Phoenix picked away a few red mullet ...

alongside the one and only sand sole on the market...

plenty of haddock came with the hake...

along with a few small cuckoo ray.

 

Kingfisher launches fishing restrictions mapping website

 

New online service helps fishers navigate commercial fishing gear restrictions in UK waters.

The Kingfisher team at Seafish, the public body that supports the UK seafood industry, have launched a new Fishing Restrictions mapping service for fishers.

This free service allows fishers to view all UK fishing gear restrictions in one place, with complete coverage of all regulatory authorities. The service has been fully funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).

The Kingfisher team created this service following discussions with stakeholders in the fishing industry in relation to the difficulty they were experiencing in sourcing and understanding complex fishing legislation.

Information surrounding the protected areas has previously been spread across multiple websites and information sources, often missing positional data about restriction boundaries. Now, for the first time, they are available in one place and can be accessed (in port or at sea) via an interactive map, data plotters and information downloads. The restrictions can also be shared via WhatsApp, social media and email.

Eleanor Michie, GIS Analyst at Seafish and lead on the fishing gear restrictions mapping project said:

“We know that fishers are currently facing difficulty in finding, interpreting, and plotting the commercial fishing restrictions in UK waters. The new mapping system aims to improve understanding and create a platform which can be used with confidence. It provides fishers with an answer to the question ‘Am I allowed to fish here now?’

“In making this information easily available to fishers, we hope to increase awareness of prohibited and permissible fishing operations and promote compliance with regulations and sustainable fishing practices.

“In order to ensure the system meets industry standard and is kept up to date, all gear restrictions have been categorised according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) fishing gear naming system.”

Dale Rodmell, Assistant Chief Executive at National Federation of Fisherman’s Organisations (NFFO), said:

“This project brings transparency to the regulations, to know where they apply, and make what is a rapidly-growing and complex set of rules easier to follow.

“If you are going out in your car, you need to know what the rules of the road are at any point during the journey, and it’s the same with fishing. On the road, this is done with road signs but there is no equivalent for sea fishing, and this project helps to fill that gap.

“It will make it much easier, especially when at sea to know what rules apply in a particular place, and helps to ensure no one inadvertently breaks them, which can only be good for the industry. It also ensures that the purposes of regulations are realised, and that in turn is a sign of sound fisheries governance.”

The Kingfisher team will also distribute the data on USB sticks via Fishing Associations towards the end of the year so that fishers can easily add it to their plotters.

To find out more, visit the website www.kingfisherrestrictions.org or contact Eleanor Michie on Eleanor.Michie@seafish.co.uk.

Full story by Nial Duffy writing for The Skipper.

Brexit: French fishermen announce day of action - this coming Friday.

Note to diary:

Thursday, November 25, at 2:30 p.m. 

This is the date chosen by the National Fisheries Committee, the three regional committees and the departmental fisheries committees bordering the Channel (Hauts-de-France, Normandy and Brittany) to unveil, during a decentralised press conference, the blocking actions they intend to carry out, the next day, to show the British their determination to obtain the fishing licenses to which they believe they have the right in the waters of the Channel Islands and the UK 6 to 12 miles.

According to Olivier Leprêtre, president of the Hauts-de-France regional fisheries committee, these actions will target more flows to the United Kingdom than those coming from it.

The Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, who had met his British counterpart David Frost on Sunday evening, followed on Monday 22 with the Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Brexit, Maros Sefcovic. He reminded him of the importance of this issue that the European Commission, obsessed with the Irish border issue, did not “take seriously enough at the start  If Europe is not able collectively to demand respect for it (the trade agreement), and to obtain it, we will have a long-term problem with its implementation ” .

Hilborn gutted over flawed report

 

Reflection on the Minderoo Foundation’s Global Fishing Index

by Ray Hilborn

This Monday, the Minderoo Foundation released their 2021 Global Fishing Index report meant to give a global picture of fisheries status. I have collaborated with the Minderoo Foundation in the past, but this report is highly flawed and should be viewed sceptically. The report claims over 50% of stocks are overfished and no country gets an “A” or a “B” grade for their management efforts—just six get a “C.” Countries that have essentially eliminated overfishing and are clearly delivering near maximum benefits to their countries are graded a “C.” Why is that not an A?

The report fails to acknowledge that over much of the world, fisheries management is working; overfishing has been greatly reduced and stocks are recovering. Many countries are sustainably producing near maximum benefits from their fish stock. The message that we need to bring fisheries management, including data collection, assessment, regulation, and enforcement to all the world is needed, but not new—agency scientists, academics and NGOs have been working towards this reality for decades and the conclusions and tone of this report dismiss the work of thousands of people.

The most critical flaw in the report’s methodology is their definition of overfished. The authors call any stock whose abundance is below a level thought to produce maximum long-term yield (called the biomass that produces maximum sustainable yield, BMSY) as overfished – and estimate that roughly 50% of stocks are below BMSY, and thus “overfished.” However, if fishing effort was perfectly managed to assure maximum long-term harvest (the typical objective), stocks would fluctuate around BMSY. As a result of natural fluctuations beyond management control, stocks would be above this level half the time, but also below this level half the time.

Thus, a country that was perfectly managing its fish stocks to generate food and employment for it’s people would have half of its stocks called “overfished” by this definition. So if the report estimates that half of fish stocks are “overfished” by their definition, perhaps all world’s fisheries are being well-managed?

The report claims to have assessments of the status of 1,465 individual stocks, but many of those assessments used catch-based estimates. Catch-based estimates are a totally unreliable method of stock assessment. A major scientific journal won’t even review papers submitted to their journal that use them.

The absurdity of their methods and definitions is illustrated by the estimate of the proportion of the assessed stocks in the country that are above the accepted target. In this regard they list Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Nigeria and Thailand as top ranked major fishing countries. This simply fails any test of veracity. These are largely countries with limited fisheries management systems and generally recognised to suffer from significant overfishing.

Their governance index comes to equally bizarre conclusions. Norway, Iceland and the U.S. score 8, but so does Indonesia and the Philippines. Chile scores even higher with a 9.

The report is full of contradictions and cherry-picking to create their overfishing narrative. For instance, they say in the introduction “there have been pockets of success where strong interventions have improved stock health.” Yet then: “globally the state of fish stocks is not improving.”

The first statement is backed by citations showing that across countries that represent half of the worlds’ fish catch (which they call mere pockets), stocks are increasing. The second statement quotes an FAO report showing that the number of overfished stocks is growing slightly. What the report misses is that fisheries management is working in fisheries encompassing half of the world’s catch, but largely unknown and likely poor in the other half. Making blanket statements about the state of global fisheries is not helpful.

Overfishing is not a global problem as the report argues, but rather a problem confined to parts of the world where fisheries management is weak. Certainly, even in the best managed places there remain some stocks that are below target levels, but in many cases these stocks are not fished at all or very slightly fished, and their poor status is due to environmental factors like climate change or terrestrial runoff.

Ray Hilborn 21 November 2021