The International Council for exploration of the Sea (ICES) has advised that there should be no commercial pollack catches in the Celtic Sea and English Channel for 2024. This advice is based on surveys and commercial catches, which don’t include any data from the University of Plymouth.
Pollack is an economically and socially important species to communities along the Devon and Cornwall coast, and has experienced a 72% decline in commercial landings over the last 20 years. Data are severely lacking about the causes of this decline and the status of pollack populations, and we know remarkably little about population status, life history or their migration/movement habits. This hampers efforts to manage stocks sustainably.
To address the knowledge gap, the University of Plymouth has secured funding from the Defra FISP scheme to study pollack in the English Channel. The project findings will be extremely important for evidence-based fisheries management.
Information will be collected on the species’ population status and life history traits via a consortium of charter fishing vessels from several ports around the southwest UK. Across the same area fifty pollack will be fitted with acoustic tags and tracked with a network of acoustic telemetry receivers, identifying migration routes and providing insights into essential fish habitats.
The project is funded by Defra and will be delivered by the University of Plymouth in partnership with the Professional Boatmans Association, the University of York, CEFAS and the Angling Trust.
The full ICES advice on Pollack in the Celtic sea and the English Channel can be found here.
aMER - applied Marine Ecosystems Research 