The launch of the second season for anchovy fishing in Peru’s north-center region has been set for 16 November.
Peru’s Ministry of Production (PRODUCE) has established a capture limit of 2.7 million metric tons (MT) for indirect human consumption during the upcoming season, El Comercio reported, citing official gazette El Peruano. The season is to be brought to a close once the limit has been reached, or whenever recommended by Peru’s Sea Institute (Imarpe), a specialized technical agency of PRODUCE which advises the state on marine conservation issues.
PRODUCE closed the north-center region’s first anchovy fishing season on 31 July, when fishing fleets captured 2.013 million MT in the region, reaching 95.9 percent of the limit set. At the time, the established maximum was significantly lower than the same season one year prior, which had been set at 3.3 million tons, as in 2019 the El Niño phenomenon made for warmer waters off the Peruvian coastline, impacting anchovy development.
In fact, Peru’s National Fisheries Society (SNP) had expected the overall catch of anchovies to fall 22 percent year-on-year for the first seven months of 2019, due to both the lower fishing quota and inclement weather at the beginning of the season, with the resulting high winds and swells leading to the closing of ports and resulting in a late start of industrial fleet operations.
Anchovy catches during the first season in Peru’s north-center region were 4.6 percent lower than the average of the last five years, SNP president Cayetana Aljovín said at the time.
The country’s fishing areas are divided in two: the south region and the north-center region, and each has different fishing seasons and capture limits.
The south region’s second anchovy fishing season was launched 6 August and is expected to run through December, for which PRODUCE established a capture limit of 540,000 MT.
Photo courtesy of Peru Minstry of Production
