The Icelandic fishing fleet landed 71,594 metric tons (MT) of fisheries products last month, a decrease of 25 percent compared with July 2015, according to the latest figures gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries and published by Statistics Iceland.
In addition to a 15 percent drop in the flatfish catch, which totaled 2,321 MT last month, there was a 38 percent decline in the total pelagic catch, which amounted to 39,943 MT last month.
Within the pelagic category, the blue whiting catch which fell by 99 percent year-on-year to 31 MT and mackerel landings declined 38 percent to 36,318 MT. The herring catch increased 20 percent to 3,594 MT.
There was, however, a 6 percent improvement in demersal landings, which totaled 28,058 MT last month. Within this category, the cod catch increased 9 percent to 13,874 MT, the redfish catch increased 14 percent to 4,896 MT and the saithe catch increased 8 percent to 5,575 MT. But the haddock catch dropped 17 percent to 2,070 MT.
Iceland’s shellfish catch also grew last month, with fishermen landing 1,238 MT of products, up 2 percent.
During the last 12-month period, Iceland landed less than 1.1 million MT of seafood, a decrease of 22 percent year-on-year.
