Despite controversy earlier in the year, anchovy fishing in Peru’s north-center region has gone smoothly during the first season – launched 13 May.
The fishery has captured of 2.1 million metric tons (MT) to date of the 2.4 million MT capture limit set by Peru’s Ministry of Production (PRODUCE).
“I think Peru will reach 100 percent capture, no problem,” Pablo Trapunsky, CEO of Peruvian fishing firm Pesquera Diamante, told SeafoodSource. “We already reached our quota last Saturday [4 July].”
The highest landings have taken place in the ports of Malabrigo, Coishco, Chimbote, Supe, Vegueta, Carquín, Callao, and Tambo de Mora, stretching from La Libertad department to the Áncash department, with a total of 590 fishing vessels participating in the extractive activity, PRODUCE announced in a statement.
At the same time, activity was suspended in 79 fishing zones between Huarmey (Áncash department) in the north to Paracas (Ica) in the south, after government authorities analyzed the information received from the captains of the fishing vessels, through the electronic log system, PRODUCE said.
The ministry highlighted that the biomass of juveniles in the anchovy resource extracted to date averages 8.5 percent. That is in stark comparison to the last season, when Peru’s Sea Institute (Imarpe) – a specialized technical agency of PRODUCE which advises the state on marine conservation issues – conducted a biological-fishery expedition survey of anchovy in the area between Chicama and Ilo, and confirmed that juveniles reached 97.8 percent in number and 78.9 percent in weight.
That finding led PRODUCE to declare a premature close mid-January to the anchovy fishing season in the country’s north-central region, also following heated protests from the country’s local fishermen over what they argued was a failure by the ministry to protect the country’s anchovy resources. During that season fishing, firms caught only a fraction of the 2.7 million MT limit established by PRODUCE.
Those decisions, and the start of the season, were also marked by Peru’s national prosecutor soliciting the search and seizure of documents and property in Imarpe, under the suspicion that the organization adulterated data relating to the anchovy biomass. The executive branch then submitted an emergency decree that would modify the law that created Imarpe, leading the seafood industry in the country to cry foul over the move.
Peru’s fishing areas are divided in two: the south region and the north-central region, and each have different fishing seasons and capture limits. The south region’s second anchovy fishing season was launched 6 August and ran through December, for which PRODUCE established a capture limit of 540,000 MT.
The fishery, which targets both Engraulis ringens and Anchoa nasus for use in indirect human consumption – primarily, fishmeal and fish oil used in aquaculture production – is the largest by volume in the world.
Photo courtesy of Imarpe
