Fishing industry

Question 1

What are the four main drivers of change in the North Sea?

Answer 1

1. Technological developments
2. Economic drivers
3. Political events
4. Fishing quotas

Question 2

Describe the technological advances in the fishing industry.

Answer 2

-changing to steam boats from sail allowed fisherman to cover more areas faster and more often. Sail relied on wind and opportunistic windows to fish which was restricted.

Steam trawlers were fitted with guns in the war and taken away from fishing to help in the battles.

Steam advanced onto coal and then onto oil powered boats post WWII. Oil engine was more efficient and more space because oil takes up less space than coal.

In the 60’s industrial trawlers were introduced. Never ending fishing due to motherships being able to take away fish to make more space and replenish stocks on the smaller fishing boats. These had powerful winches, on board processing, canning and freezing.

Question 3

What are some of the passive methods for fishing?

Answer 3

Passive gear relies on the species encountering the gear. The ecological benefit of this is if the population is low then the catch will be low.

-Longlines have a huge bycatch problem and is responsible for large declines in sea birds like the Albatross. Conservation strategy would be to use longlines at night because longlines are used at a depth of 50m-300m where light is being lost.
Fishing could take place at night when sea birds don’t forage.

• Gill nets; although technically passive, it is regarded as active fishing gear because nothing escapes the ‘wall of death’.
• Set nets; anchored to the sea bed for benthic species
• Drift nets have been called ‘walls of death’ because everything that encounters it will be caught. Drift nets are now only allowed to be 2.5km long by the UN but the longer ones can still be used illegally.

Question 4

What are some of the active methods of fishing?

Answer 4

Active gear is mainly trawling nets. Active methods seek out and pursue fish. When stocks are low, increased ‘effort’ will catch those that remain.

-beam trawler and otter board nets.
Active trawlers are assisted using sonar units. Track where there’s fish and the net will adjust to intercept the schools of fish.

Gloria – super trawler, can wipe out whole schools of fish of all generations.

Purse seine nets - shoals of fish can be detected by sonar or spotter planes and completely encircled.

The advancement from natural fibre nets to synthetic nets are now lighter, stronger with lower towing resistance.

Other methods include; dredgers, spears/ harpoons, explosives and sonar.

Question 5

What are some of the economic drivers that have influenced the fishing industry?

Answer 5

The industrial revolution introduced railways inland so the demand of fish increased.

Demand also increased due to a growing population and marketed fads, celebrity and eco-labelling.

Fishing is a reactive market and driven by demand. When the public choose to eat certain types of fish it has a huge impact.

Question 6

What are some of the political events that have influenced the fishing industry?

Answer 6

Sea Fishing Act 1866: Unrestricted fishing.

The catches after the two world wars were larger than any of the catches before the war. This was the first hint that the fish stocks were recovering and gave people an idea of the impact we were having on fish populations.

Question 7

What were the Cod Wars?

Answer 7

Cod Wars – UK have fished all over world and fished Cod especially. In newfoundland the Cod was fished until it was gone. Around Iceland has a lot of Cod which Iceland highly relied on for food and their economy. Iceland refused to let the UK fish the waters. However, UK had a deal with Denmark that the UK could dock in Icelandic waters, but UK fished as they came in and out of these docks. Iceland would respond by sending boats out to cut the nets off UK boats.
Every single time a Cod War happened Iceland threatened to leave NATO.

But NATO needed Iceland to win the cold war so UK would back down at this point.

Question 8

What are some of the nation jurisdiction of the seas in 1975?

Answer 8

-UN convention of the law of the sea (UNCLOS)

-Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs): 200 nautical miles arounds. (
No point in fishing beyond the EEZ’s because they aren’t high in fish productivity.

Membership to the EEC allows other European countries to use each-other’s waters.

A lot of the commercial fish are slow growers and don’t respond well to fishing. Populations of commercial fish don’t mix and are separate units, but these populations can cross EEZ boundaries which can cause conflict.)

90% of fisheries came into national control.

Question 9

Why do we need to manage wild fish?

Answer 9

1. Unsustainable environmental costs of fishing industry
2. Threatens rare species and marine ecosystems
3. To prevent extinction of exploited fish
4. To ensure a sustainable supply of fish

Question 10

When does over-fishing occur?

Answer 10

• When fishing exceeds the biological capacity for replenishment
• Too many fishing vessels chasing too few fish
• Profitability declines when there are too few fish to sustain the expense of crew, fuel and machinery.

Question 11

What are the 5 stages of fisheries if not managed?

Answer 11

1. Fishery development
2. Full exploitation
3. Over exploitation
4. Collapse
5. Recovery

These stages depend on fish abundance, fleet size, catch size and profit.

Question 12

Why is it important to understand the life histories of commercial fish?

Answer 12

Helps us to understand how fish are affected by fishing.

Mainly fisheries look at fast vs slow growth to see how quickly they can recover.

Question 13

What is fisheries management for and some of the approaches?

Answer 13

• Ensuring catches and profits are sustainable
• Ecosystems based management
• Research
• Population modelling

Question 14

What are the four parameters used in assessing the health of an exploited fish population?

Answer 14

1. Fishing Mortality (F) - A measure of the proportion of a fish stock taken each year by fishing;
2. Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB) - The total weight of mature fish (capable of spawning) in the populations;
3. Recruitment - The number of young fish produced each year which survive from spawning to enter the adult stock and the fishery;
4. Landings - The total annual tonnage of fish taken from the stock and landed by the fishing fleet

Question 15

What is the maximum sustainable yield?

Answer 15

This is the maximum level at which a natural resource can be routinely exploited without long-term depletion.

Question 16

What are some of the methods for measuring the fishing mortality (F) and spawning stock biomass (SSB)?

Answer 16

Information comes from;

1. market sampling: Numbers caught and size and age measured.
2. discard sampling: This represents 27% of global fisheries.

and research vessel sirveys

Question 17

What are some of the reasons for discarding fish?

Answer 17

• To comply with quota limits
• Below legal landing size
• No commercial value

Question 18

How do you age a fish and how can it be used to determine population stability?

Answer 18

Age counting bumps on otolith bone.

Age structure of the population can be estimated.

low numbers of young fish = poor recruitment = future decline.

Low numbers of old fish = overfishing = future decline

Question 19

What is the role of research vessels in managing fisheries?

Answer 19

They collect data on young fish recruits and the distribution and abundance of adult stock.

Using bottom trawlers to survey cos, haddock and whiting.

Use acoustic surveys for herring.

Question 20

What are the challenges of assessing stock?

Answer 20

It’s hard to be accurate because fish move around, fishermen can lie and by-catch is not recorded.

Question 21

What are the structures of fisheries management in the UK?

Answer 21

• The International Council for the exploration of the Sea (ICES) - advises on the management of the exploitation of living marine resources.
• Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) - three objectives: 1) sustainable fisheries management, securing maximum sustainable yields of fish stocks, and the implementations of an ecosystem-based approach.
• Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) -The environmental pillar of the European Union’s Integrated Maritime Policy. The objective is to achieve good environmental status (GES) in European marine waters by 2020
• Centre for Environment, fisheries and aquaculture science (CEFAS)
• Producer organisations (PO)

Question 22

What are the four components of The Common Fisheries Policy?

Answer 22

1. Regulation of production, quality, grading, packaging and labelling.
2. Encouraging producer organisations intended to protect fishermen from sudden market changes.
3. Setting minimum fish prices and financing buying up of unsold fish.
4. Set rules for trade with non-EU countries

Question 23

How does The Common Fisheries Policy regulate?

Answer 23

Fisheries management actions usually consist of catch controls, effort controls or technical measures.

Catch controls are implemented in EU countries including the UK as Total allowable catches, or individual catch quotas.

Effort controls are implemented by licensing schemes for fishers and vessels, effort quotas or vessel and gear restrictions.

Technical measures include restricting the size of mesh in nets in order to let young fish escape and closed seasons or area closures in fisheries.

Question 24

What is the Total Allowable Catch?

Answer 24

These are intended to allocate fish resources to different member states and to control the amount of fish removed each year. These are set on an annual basis and usually informed by the EU council of fisheries ministers in December.

Each member state administers its own quota as it likes- providing the catch limits are adhered to and all member state fishermen are treated equally.

In the UK, the Government hands the management of quotas to the Producer Organisations run by fishermen- and they decide how to manage the quotas.

Question 25

What must member states of The Marine Strategy Framework Directive attain and maintain?

Answer 25

Member States must attain and maintain GES according to 11 key descriptors – including:

Biodiversity
Non-indigenous Species
Commercially Exploited Fish and Shellfish Stocks
Foodwebs
Sea-floor Integrity

Question 26

Are fisheries becoming more sustainable?

Answer 26

From an economic, ecological and social perspective- fisheries management is a disaster..

The main factors leading to unsustainable fishing are due to:

1. inappropriate incentives and subsidies
2. high demand for limited resources
3. Poverty/financial ties
4. ignoring scientific evidence and advice
5. Focusing on individual stocks

Question 27

What is the multi-species assessment?

Answer 27

Modern approaches use Simulation Models for Whole Ecosystems

The SMS model can also show how predation changes with the size of the fish over time

E.g Catching more cod causes biomass of their main prey (whiting and haddock) to increase. More whiting and haddock means the biomass of their main prey (herring, sand eel, Norway pout and sprat) decreases