Outlook for pacific pilchard and mackerel fishery in the Russian Far East

The stocks of pilchard Sardinops melanostictus and mackerel in the Pacific Ocean have been showing the development trends similar to those predicted by the Russian scientists in 2014-2015. Their forecast for the years coming is fairly promising, according to TINRO-Center (major fishery research institution in the Russian Far East).

Trawl surveys conducted by TINRO in the recent years show that the biomass of Japanese pilchard in the Northwest Pacific has reached 3.3 million metric tons, while the biomass of mackerel in the South Kurile zone has approached 4 million tonnes.

According to the scientists, if the rising trend persists, in the medium term potential volumes for capture may be increased to one million tonnes for pilchard and 300,000-400,000 tonnes for mackerel.

Catch

By 20 November 2018 Russian fishermen harvested 133,000 tonnes of pelagic fish in the nation’s Far East Fishery Basin, thus showing more than a double increase on last year, according to FAF.

The harvest was dominated by Japanese pilchard Sardinops melanostictus with the result of ca.60,000 metric tons or 4-fold up on last year. The mackerel catch jumped by 75% to 66,000 metric tons. The saury harvest rose by 24% to 7,800 tonnes. For the Russian fleet the saury fishery got closed for this season.