Porbeagle Fisheries Essay

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North Atlantic Porbeagle Fisheries The North Atlantic Porbeagle is highly in demand by Europe, The United States and japan. It has also been a valued species for recreational fishing in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Porbeagle has a high value and is desired especially in East Asian countries as its meat and fins are considered a delicacy. Norway was the first country to start a North Atlantic Porbeagle fishery; they started in the 1930’s using long lines landing the Northeast Atlantic Porbeagle subpopulation. At first they took in large landings peaking in 1933 when they took in 3,884 t. The landings continued to drop and anywhere between 1,200 t and 1900 t was caught between 1953 and 1960. The fishery had collapsed. The Norwegian’s and the Danish re-directed their longline vessels to the Northwest Atlantic to try and increase landings of the Northwest Atlantic Porbeagle subpopulations in 1961. Catches increased initially peaking at 9000 t in 1964. Unfortunately the fishery collapsed soon after landing less than 1000t just 6 years after the fishery started. Longline vessels began fishing for other fish. After the Northwest Atlantic Porbeagle stock collapsed around the 1970’s the fisheries stopped due to the fact that there was now an extremely low catch rate meaning that there was a very low abundance of the Porbeagle. There are also no current indications of stock recovery as the North Atlantic Porbeagle is renowned for its low reproductive capacity. However in the 1990’s there was renewed target fishing which lead to a further population decline in stock or a decline to around 11-17% of the virgin biomass. In recent times there has been improved management around the Northwest Atlantic subpopulations that could lead to stock recovery. Stock recovery in the Northeast subpopulation has been estimated to take around 25 years even if catches are as low
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