MFRI´s advise for the fishing year 2024/2025 f

Picture: Svanhildur Egilssdóttir

MFRI (Marine and Freshwater Research Institute) has released advice on fishing opportunities for over twenty fish and invertebrate stocks in Icelandic waters in the 2024/2025 fishing year. The advice is available from the MFRI website under Advice.

MFRI advises a TAC of 213 214 t of cod for the 2024/2025 fishing year according to the management plan adopted by Icelandic authorities. The advised TAC is a 1% increase from the current fishing year's TAC of 211 309 t. The reason for this increase is a higher estimate of the reference biomass compared to the previous year. The reference biomass of cod is expected to remain at current levels or decrease slightly in the next two to three years when the 2020 and 2021 cohorts enter fully into the reference biomass as they are estimated to be at or below average in terms of size.

According to the Icelandic management plan, MFRI advises that the TAC for haddock in 2024/2025 will be 76 774 tonnes which is a slight increase from the current fishing year's TAC. The reference biomass is expected to remain at current levels in the next two years and then decline as the 2019 to 2021 cohorts are above average.

The advice for saithe, when the Icelandic management plan is applied, is 66 533 tonnes for the 2024/2025 fishing year, a minor increase from current fishing year’s TAC.

The advised TAC for golden redfish in the East Greenland / Iceland / Faroe Islands area in the 2024/2025 fishing year is 46 911 tonnes, 14% increase from the current fishing year's TAC. Nevertheless, recruitment has been very low since 2009 and the spawning stock biomass has decreased in recent years. Therefore, the spawning stock biomass is projected to decline and hence, the advice is likely to decrease sharply in the next years.

For demersal beaked redfish MFRI advises that no catch should be taken in the fishing year 2024/2025 as the stock is now estimated below limit reference point for spawning stock biomass (B_lim). The stock is not expected to recover above B_lim in the near future.

Advice for Greenland halibut is decreased compared to the previous year, and is now 17 890 tonnes. The change in advice is due to the stock size is now estimated below B_trigger . Good recruitment has been observed and it is likely that the stock size will increase above B_trigger in the near term.

The advice on the TAC for the Icelandic summer spawning herring now follows a revised management plan where the TAC is based on 19% of the reference biomass (biomass of age 4 and above) instead of 15% from the previous rule. Despite this increase in the harvest target, the advice according to the new management plan for the 2024/2025 fishing year is 81 367 which is a reduction of 12% from the current fishing years advice. This is due to a considerably lower estimate of the reference biomass.

The following table shows the MFRI advice for the 2024/2025 fishing year.

Bjarki´s Elvarsson presentation (in Icelandic).

TAC recommended by the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute for the fishing year 2024/2025, along with recommended and national TAC for the fishing year 2023/2024 (in tonnes). Also shown is the % change in advice between fishing years.