Results of fisheries in the Russian Far East in first half of 2009

The fisheries in the seas of the Russian Far East Basin in the first half of 2009 ended up with positive results on the same period last year, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (https://www.fishnet.ru/) with reference to NCMC and fishery sources in Vladivostok.

According to provisional figures, the basin's total harvest in January-June 2009 exceeded the last year result by 44,000 tonnes. The pollock TAC was covered at 54.2%, 1.6% up on last year. While, despite the weak fishery situation, the pollock harvest in the Bering Sea was on a par with last year, the TAC take-up amounted to 14.5% versus 10.8% in the first half of 2008 due to smaller catch quotas in the West Bering Sea zone.

The situation with the Sea of Okhotsk was quite the opposite. With the catch volumes exceeding the last year results by 30,500 tonnes, the pollock TAC in the Sea of Okhotsk was covered only at 77.7% versus 92.5% in 2008. The decrease of the TAC take-up could be attributed to increased allocations in the current year.

Favourable fishery situation on the mixed bottomfish grounds enabled the fishermen to increase the flounder catches nearly by 16,000 tonnes on last year. In the current year a number of the species, including flounder, wachna cod and grenadier in a number of fishing areas have been expelled from the list of TAC-regulated species partly due to increased catches of flounder (15,700 tonnes) and wachna cod (3000 tonnes) versus the corresponding period of last year.

However, in the first half of the year with a rare exception the approved volumes of aquatic biological resources were covered at more than 50% due to a number of objective and subjective reasons. As for non-finfish species the fisheries grew brisker on the grounds of sea urchins, whelks and octopus.