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EU herring threatened in North Sea, scientists say

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 June 2006, 09:13 CDT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's trawlermen should cut back drastically next year on trawling for herring in the North Sea as juvenile herring are not maturing properly, a respected group of international scientists warned on Tuesday.

Serious reductions were needed in next year's catch due to worrying falls in the area's herring stock, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) said, adding that the EU's quota should be slashed by nearly 50 percent for 2007.

European Commission fisheries experts use the ICES advice to calculate quotas for each commercial species for the following year that are presented to EU ministers for approval.

For once, the reason for the low fish numbers is not necessarily that there has been overtrawling and quota-busting by some of the more voracious EU fishing fleets -- activities that have threatened the survival of cod and hake in European waters.

This time, scientists appear genuinely baffled and say the main problem is that while younger herring are spawning properly, they are not maturing and increasing the adult stock.

"Although the North Sea herring stock is currently in good condition at 1.7 million tonnes, we know that there are lean times ahead because of low numbers of young fish joining the stock," ICES General Secretary Gerd Hubold said in a statement.

"Finding out why this is happening is the hard part. Our surveys show that large numbers of larvae are being produced but then they are not surviving, so we are focusing our research efforts on trying to get to the bottom of this mystery."

To conserve North Sea herring for the future, EU vessels should reduce their 2007 catch to around 240,000 tonnes from this year's allowance of 455,000 tonnes, ICES said.

Changes in North Sea environment conditions or poor supply of plankton for feeding might have caused the problem, it said.

Herring populations form a continuous chain extending from the North Sea to the northernmost parts of the Baltic Sea.

A small oily fish, herrings move in vast schools and arrive in springtime at the shores of Europe and America, where they are caught and salted, pickled and smoked in great quantities.

Source: REUTERS

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