Rosrybolovstvo, Russia’s fishery agency, has set next year’s total allowable catch (TAC) for pollock at 1.78 million metric tons (MT), which is 110,000 MT or 5.8 percent lower than this year.
Pollock is the main commercial species targeted in Russia’s Far Eastern fisheries basin. In 2018, fishermen in the West Bering Sea, East Kamchatka, North Kurile and South Kurile zones will be allowed to catch 690,600 MT of the fish, the Sea of Okhotsk has been permitted less than 1.1 MT, while the Sea of Japan and the Chukotka region have 12,100 and 5,400 MT respectively.
At the same time, the catch limit for Pacific herring has been set at 324,500 MT, of which in the Karaginskaya subarea gets 48,100 MT, the Sea of Okhotsk has 276,000 MT and the Sea of Japan gets 350 MT.
Furthermore, the cod TAC is set at 132,960 MT, the Far Eastern flounder TAC is 81,150 MT, the crab TAC is 81,700 MT and the shrimp TAC is more than 14,000 MT.
In the Northern Basin, the limit for Kamchatka crab is set at 9,940 MT and 9,840 MT for snow crab.
In the Western fisheries basin, the 2018 catch limit for Baltic herring is 29,500 MT, the TAC for sprats is 42,600 MT, cod is 5,900 MT and flatfish is 1,660 MT.
In 2016, Russia’s catch exceeded 4.7 million MT, which was the highest level seen in 16 years. Increases were recorded in almost all fishery basins.
