Overview of fisheries in the Russian Far East in January-August 2009

According to the provisional figures, in January-August 2009 the fishermen from the Russian Far East harvested 1.7 million tonnes of finfish and other aquatic species, the figure at 55% contributed by pollock, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to fishery sources in Vladivostok.

Catches in the Bering Sea and East Kamchatka amounted to 406,000 tonnes, those in the North and South Kurile amounted to 176,000 tonnes, in the Sea of Okhotsk - ca.1.1 million tons and in the Sea of Japan - ca.100,000 tonnes.

More than one half of the Basin's total harvest, 55% namely, was contributed by pollock. The main area for pollock fishery was the Sea of Okhotsk contributing 73.5% of the total pollock harvest. The total pollock harvest through the first eight months of the year amounted to 63% of the TAC.

The cod TAC was covered at 42.7%, the flounder TAC in the Petropavlovsk-Komandor subarea was covered at 60.4%. In the West Kamchatka subarea the flounder harvest accounted only for one third of the TAC. Take-up of the Atka mackerel TACs was weak in the southeast of Kamchatka and in the North Kuriles - 11,500 tonnes out of allowed 25,500 tonnes and 18,000 tonnes out of allowed 47,000 tonnes correspondingly.

The crab TACs were covered only at 40%, according to the provisional figures. However, the snow crab opilio TAC in the North Okhotsk subarea was exhausted at 74.5% with the harvest of the species exceeding 10,000 tonnes.

The squid TAC in the Petropavlovsk-Komandor subarea and in the North Kurile were covered only at 36%.

As compared to the corresponding period of last year, the Basin's total harvest of finfish and other aquatic species increased by 240,000 tonnes. While the pollock harvest remained at the last year level, catches of such species as flounder, Atka mackerel and wachna cod showed upward trends as compared to last year. Slight increases were also observed for whelks, scallops and squid. Due to some objective reasons Kamchatka-based longliners owned by ZAO Akros (closed jsc) did not go to the fishing grounds in the current year 2009, thus the longline harvest of cod appeared to be 7000 tonnes below the last year result. At the same time, deletion of wachna cod from the list of TAC-regulated species resulted into a nearly 10,000-tonne rise of the wachna cod harvest. The same situation was observed with catches of flounder exceeding the last year result by more than 17,000 tonnes. The grenadier harvest in the current year amounted to more than 20,000 tonnes versus 12,500 tonnes in the first eight months of last year, which also resulted from deletion of the species from the list of the TAC-regulated fish stocks.

The salmon harvest this year was several times bigger than the last year catch and the largest result in the history of the salmon fishery in the Russian Far East.