Russian fishermen getting ready for spring capelin fishery 2011
According to a decision of Russian-Norwegian Mixed Fisheries Commission on Fisheries, Russia's total capelin quota 2011 has been set at 100,000 tonnes as 40,000 tonnes out of 140,000 tonnes allocated to Russia were handed over to the Norwegian side in exchange for Atlanto-Scandian herring.
At a recent meeting of Murmansk Fishery Council the participants have decided that in 2011 they will not organize headquarters on capelin fishery management with the powers to be entrusted to the Fishery Council of the Barents Sea and White Sea Territorial Department of the nation's Federal Fisheries Agency. The latter council has been established this autumn for polar cod fishery management. The members of the council include specialists from the above mentioned territorial department, heads of the region's fishery organizations and associations, scientists from PINRO research institute and ZAO Morskaya Informatika (closed jsc), specialists from Northwest Department of Russia's National Monitoring Centre for Fisheries and Communication, Murmansk Fish Port, marine inspectors from the region's Frontier Department of the Federal Security Service and representatives from Murmansk Customs.
Global warming has continued influencing on time frames for the capelin fishery. More specifically, while earlier the Russian vessels went to the grounds either in the middle or in the end of February, in the current year 2010 the first vessel started hunting for capelin already on 10 January. Most probably, in 2011 the capelin fishery will take off early as well.
The fishing operations will be accompanied by a research vessel of PINRO Polar Research Institute for Fishery and Oceanography. Besides, scientists will be also working onboard fishing vessels. All the information on the condition of capelin stocks will be published as PINRO forecasts on the institute's website.
Murmansk Fish Port will be traditionally assigned a task to clear fishing vessels for landing and seafood products as well. Capelin will be landed both in frozen and chilled form. Just like in previous years, chilled capelin will be landed by Lazurnyi ship in order to supply the local market with fresh fish. Besides, chilled capelin will be still purchased from the Norwegian fishermen via a raw pelagic fish sales concern of OAO Murmansk Fish Combine (plc).
Packing of chilled capelin and its delivery to sales outlets of Murmansk and other towns of the surrounding region have been entrusted to the Union "Murmansk Fish Processing Complex".