ICES advises big cuts to 2022 Barents Sea cod, haddock quotas

The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) is recommending a 20 percent cut in the Barents Sea cod quota for 2022 and a 22.6 percent reduction in the area’s haddock catches.

For cod, ICES advised that when the Joint Norwegian–Russian Fisheries Commission (JRNFC) management plan is applied, catches in 2022 should be no more than 708,480 metric tons (MT). This is down from an expected catch of 885,600 MT this year.

ICES said the region’s haddock catch in 2022 should be no more than 180,003 MT when the JRNFC management plan is applied, a reduction from the 232,537 MT recommended this year.

In 2020, some 182,468 MT of haddock was landed, 15 percent less than the total allowable catch (TAC). This is also expected to be the case this year, especially since the TAC in 2021 was higher than the 2020 TAC. The 2018-2020 year classes are estimated to be below the average of the 1990-2017 year classes.

ICES said the lower cod advice for 2022 is due to a declining stock trend and the application of the 20 percent total allowable catch (TAC) change constraint, while the haddock recommendation follows the downward revision of stock biomass estimates.

The council has also recommended that Iceland’s 2021/2022 cod catch should be reduced, advising that when the Icelandic management plan is applied, catches in the fishing year 2021/2022 should be no more than 222,373 MT.

The advice has decreased as a result of the downward revision in stock-size estimate, based on model changes during the 2021 benchmark, it said.

Iceland’s cod quota for the current fishing year is set at 247,000 MT. In 2019/2020, some 270,302 MT of cod was landed by the fleet.

Photo courtesy of Miroslav Halama/Shutterstock