Russia hauled in nearly 5 million metric tons (MT) of landings in 2019, a “very positive” total, according to Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries leader Ilya Shestakov.
Fisheries scientists had expected a lower catch in 2019, with predictions of an off-year for the country’s salmon fishery coupled with reduced quotas for some species in the Barents Sea.
The Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries announced that 4.6 million MT of fish and shellfish was caught by national companies as of early December 2019, which when extrapolated for the entirety of the year, will result in about 5 million MT of landings, 2 percent less than in 2018, when the total reached 5.05 million MT. That figure was up 5.1 percent from 2017.
Shestakov said the outcome is to some degree unexpectedly very good for the industry. Russia experienced its biggest salmon season in history in 2018, with a catch of 676,000 MT, while 2019 was an uneven year, which typically yields less salmon. However, 2019 saw Russia harvest 500,000 MT of salmon, up from a typical uneven year.
Russia caught 3 percent more pollock in 2019 over the previous year, reaching 1.66 million MT of landings. Its catch of Pacific herring was up 14 percent over 2018 to 340,700 MT, and its haul of cod was up 25 percent to 146,000 MT, primarily caught in the Far East fishery basin. The pelagic season brought in 32 percent more of iwashi, mackerel, and saury to 198,000 MT. Of this volume, 132,000 MT was iwashi, 63,500 MT was mackerel, and 2,400 MT was saury. All the figures are for early December, and were compared with early December of 2018.
“So, except salmon we did it well,” Shestakov concluded at a December meeting at the agency. “It’s important that other fishery basins, not only the Far Eastern one, increased catches.”
Russian aquaculture produced 202,800 MT in the first nine months of 2019, 35.7 percent more than in the corresponding period of 2018. Out of this volume, fish was 175,000 MT, up 37 percent, and stocking material production was 27,600 MT, up 26 percent compared to 2018.
Photo courtesy of Konstantin Baidin/Shutterstock
