So, while the EU has taken the high moral ground and fished according to their historic quota share, others have simply taken the fish!
#mackerel #UnsustainableFishing #SeafoodFromNorway #seafoodfromiceland #greenland #faroeislands #ukseafood

Norway and the Faroes have disregarded sharing agreements and awarded themselves inflated, unilateral quotas, part of which have been traded to the UK in return for access to Scottish waters. Through these ill-gotten gains the UK are complicit in the #overfishing of the stock.

There has been a huge expansion of the summer fishery in international waters by Icelandic, Faroese, Russian and Greenlandic vessels. catch for 2025, Russia, Iceland and Greenland significantly increased their catches this year relative to 2024.

Eileen kept the family business going and today their son Martin skippers the vessel whilst their daughter Annette is the business manager. The Neptune’s crew includes Martin’s son John, Annette’s husband Owenie and James McGonagle who has fished with the family for over 50 years.

The KFO also initiated the genetic study on the Northwest herring in 2015, which developed a ground breaking method to distinguish the herring stocks spawning in Irish and Scottish waters. This work was the foundation of the new assessment and the reopening of the fishery in 2023.

In 2010 the KFO initiated a project on the developing boarfish fishery and has worked closely with the @MarineInst since to ensure that the required science was available to set sustainable catch limits. The boarfish stock has grown c.400% since 2019.

This began in 1986 with the KFO organising and undertaking an extension of the international mackerel egg survey on the Emer Marie to prove to ICES scientists that the assessment was underestimating mackerel spawning. This led to future extension of the main survey.