Russia has continued to fish declining redfish stocks in the Irminger Sea, even as scientists recommend a complete halt to such fishing and Russia itself has made promises to stop the practice.
In 2023 Russia caught over 24,000 metric tons (MT) of the threatened stock in the Irminger Sea, which is near Greenland and Iceland, despite having promised in the past to quit the practice as a “gesture of goodwill.”
Russia also continued to fish in 2024, but those numbers will not be officially publicly available until November, when the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission holds its annual meeting.
In March 2022, Russia was suspended from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) over its invasion of Ukraine – and has since withdrawn entirely.
Kristján Kristinsson, a biologist at the Icelandic Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, said that Russia is no longer sharing data on fisheries with ICES.
"We conducted a survey in the Irminger Sea last summer, and usually the Russians are conducting the survey with us. We don’t get biological data from them anymore. That definitely has an impact," Kristinsson said but explained that the nation still provides catch data to the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission – the regional fisheries management organization that regulates fisheries in the area.
Redfish are especially vulnerable to overfishing, as even with stringent regulations it is difficult to restore their populations.
After mating, a female redfish carries its eggs for up to six months before releasing spawn into the water. Then, juvenile fish need up to 15 years before reaching reproductive age. In 2020, ICES scientists concluded that the two stocks in the Irminger Sea were declining significantly and recommended that all fisheries cease their operations for the species.
Almost all countries that caught Irminger Sea redfish, including the E.U., U.K., Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland, followed the advice. Except for bycatch, no party except Russia had fished redfish in the area since 2021, when the ICES recommendation was released.
Kristinsson said that despite Russia’s continued fishing, one of the two redfish stocks in the sea seemed to be improving.
"The upper [stock] is getting much better," he said. "[Still], the advice from ICES was 0 MT for all stocks."
Farther west, Canada reopened its redfish fishery last February for the first time in 30 years – mainly because the stock takes so long to rebound – as part of a larger transitional plan for fisheries in the nation's coastal communities.
The fishery once provided a significant livelihood for fishers in Atlantic Canada, and now, the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec are all receiving quotas.
Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced at the time that the reopening of the redfish fishery would occur in two separate phases: a two-year transitional phase that the fishery is still in, which allows for data collection and grant fish harvesters and processors time to prepare, followed by a second phase that will focus on the long-term development of the fishery.
