Overview of fisheries in Russia's Far East in 1st half of 2010

The respective result of last year was exceeded by 188,300 tonnes. Pollock was the dominating species in terms of catch volumes. Pollock catches in the first half of the year amounted to more than 1 million tonnes, 233,000 tonnes up on last year. The Okhotsk pollock harvest in winter-spring season as well as its large catch by trawlers and Danish seiners on mixed bottomfish grounds at the western coast of Kamchatka helped raise the pollock catch in the Sea of Okhotsk by 215,000 tonnes as compared to the first half of 2009. At the same time, in the Bering Sea where the fishery situation was fairly weak and the fishing efforts were smaller, the pollock catch went down by 19,000 tonnes.

As for other fish species, in the first six months of the year catch increases were recorded for cod (+4300 tonnes) and Atka mackerel (+8100 tonnes), the fisheries conducted in the waters of the North Kuriles and the Petropavlovsk-Komandor subarea. The halibut harvest exceeded the last year result by 1600 tonnes, catches of sculpins on mixed fish grounds were 4400 tonnes higher than last year. Catches of skates and ocean perch rose by 400 tonnes. Wachna cod catches increased by 200 tonnes. A slight rise of catches was observed for such species as sea bream, thornyhead and burbot.

Other species demonstrated catch declines. Especially large catch fall as compared to last year was recorded for Okhotsk herring (-28,500 tonnes). The decline was connected with a smaller number of fishing vessels targeting roe Okhotsk herring. Besides, ice conditions were unfavourable both for the fleet's operations and for setting fixed fishing gear on the grounds of roe herring.

Smaller number of trawlers participating in Danish seine fishery of bottomfish species for human consumption reflected on flounder catches which declined by 12,200 tonnes on last year. Due to the same the catch figures also showed the following declines: by 4300 tonnes of grenadier in the Kurile waters and 3600 tonnes of longfin codling in the Japanese waters.

While in the Primorye subarea of the Sea of Japan crab catches were ahead of the last year catch figures by 1400 tonnes, mostly thanks to larger harvest of red snow crab, the basin's total catch of the species declined by 450 tonnes. The bulk of the harvest just like earlier was contributed by snow crab opilio catches of which in the Sea of Okhotsk fell by 8400 tonnes or ca.50% of the basin's total catch fisgures.

Heavy ice in the Sea of Okhotsk made shrimpers conduct fishery in glades and vessels of low ice class had to leave more productive fishing area of the North Okhotsk subarea, lose fishing rime for crossing and spotting in other area. As a result, pink shrimp catches went down as compared to the same period last year.

Ice conditions also influenced the whelk fishery in the Sea of Okhotsk. The vessels that came to the grounds had to stay idle due to their inability to set traps and start fishing. Therefore as compared to last year the whelks harvest declined by 770 tonnes.

The sea cucumber harvest in the first half of the year declined by 180 tonnes, while through the first five months of the year catches of sea cucumber were 320 tonnes ahead of the last year result. Similar situation was also observed on the laminaria grounds in the bays of the East Sakhalin coast.

The opposite situation was observed on the squid grounds in the waters of the North Kuriles. Absence of commercial concentrations in the winter-spring period and weak catch rates could be attributed to a catch fall by 1200 tonnes on 5 months of last year. However, the gap was completely covered a surplus within the first summer month. As a result, provisional catch figures in the first half of the year exceeded the respective result of last year by 2100 tonnes.

Thanks to more active fishery operations on the grounds of sea scallops in the waters of North and South Kuriles the fishermen increased catches of the species and in the Sea of Japan they reported higher catches of mussels and spisula. In the meantime, smaller catches were reported for sea urchins (-500 tonnes) and such shellfish as spisula and anadara.