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he Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Seafish and the Northern Ireland (NI) Scallop Association have recently completed a report investigating the optimal areas for scallop reseeding in the Irish Sea. This work was commissioned due to an increase in exploitation of scallops around the NI coastline and a desire by industry to be proactive in enhancing long-term sustainability of stocks. Sites selected through industry engagement as proposed reseeding sites were examined by AFBI scientists to ensure that they met the characteristics required for successful settlement of scallops. Seabed habitat maps were combined to provide information for the full sea area under consideration. Scallop catches from the annual AFBI scallop survey were mapped with the full habitat map to determine the areas where scallops were present and identify the underlying habitat type. This allowed a map to be created which showed the suitable habitat for adult scallops within NI waters. All of the proposed reseeding sites fell within areas of suitable habitat. To examine further characteristics of the proposed sites, a combination of measured and modelled data was used. Salinity, food availability, bed stress (natural physical disturbance of the seabed by wave action and/or tidal currents), particulate inorganic matter, suspended particulate matter, abundance of predators, spawning season, larval dispersal and hydrodynamic models were all considered. The above information was presented to the project steering group, and using the data provided, the steering group selected the most suitable sites for reseeding from the original 13 proposed sites. Three reseeding sites (Whitehead, Drumfad Bay and South Bay) have initially been proposed, with a fourth, Roaring Rock, having potential for any future reseeding plans. The NI Scallop Association will now present the results of this work to DAERA to ask for regulation to assist in the protection of these new areas through a ban on mobile fishing gear.

By Tegen Mor Fisheries Consultants

The FisherMap protocol has been revised in order to map out commercial fishing grounds, main target species and gear contribution to fishermen’s livelihood. The initial version developed by Finding Sanctuary, the Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) project for the South-west of England, used a questionnaire and mapping survey followed by validation meetings to describe the extent of fishing grounds. The revised protocol, used by the three new MCZ regional projects, links individual grounds to percentage gross earnings. Using data from the Seafish annual fisheries economic survey data by fleet segment, it will now be possible to convert individual percentage values into a common currency across fisheries, in a way similar to the 100 pennies approach pioneered by Ecotrust in California. The revised protocol also uses a simplified and standardised gear description directly compatible with the codes used by the Marine and Fisheries and other Agencies. This will make it easier to cross-validate data from various sources. However, the coarse time scale (overall average over last 5 years) and precise local spatial definition used in FisherMap provide unique and rich information that are not collected elsewhere. With the revised FisherMap, the validation group meetings will also have to discuss and finalise the overall economic value of composite maps of local fishing grounds. The same, or subsequent, group meetings presenting the regional conservation priorities will ask fishermen to share their expert local knowledge of essential fish habitats, features and species targeted by the conservation objectives. Local knowledge will be essential to obtain meaningful estimates of both economic and environmental impacts (positive and negative) that the MCZ regional projects need to estimate for their Impact Assessment (IA) of each proposed network and associated management regime. MCZ regional projects would greatly benefit from using Seafish species guides and information on basic fishing methods, and from collaborative work with Seafish, especially Seafish economists to devise a sampling strategy for fishing vessels along the coast and use the best economics data available to conduct their Impact Assessments.

Seafish facilitated a Data Deficient Fisheries panel at the Seaweb Seafood Summit in Malta on Wednesday 3 February 2016. A number of new risk assessment methods have been developed in recent years, with the intention of providing data deficient fisheries with alternative ways of assessing their impacts on stocks and ecosystems. The aim of the session was to explore these methods and to share knowledge to allow for increased data collection and to move more fisheries towards ‘data rich’. The session was facilitated by Phil MacMullen, Seafish and there were four speakers: Simon Jennings, Cefas; Tom Pickerell, Seafish; Stewart Crichton, Orkney Fisherman’s Society and Dawn Dougherty, SNAP Data Limited Fisheries Working Group, The Nature Conservancy.

This document is a summary of information on European lobster (Homarus gammarus) targeted using pots/traps by vessels which land into Newlyn Harbour, Cornwall and is risk assessed using Seafish’s RASS scoring Guidance version 2.

This report summarises the results of experimental work carried out as part of “Design and Trials of Electrofishing System for Razorclams – FIFG 57437 and Seafish IPF funding project C85”. The aim of the project was to design and trial methods of harvesting Ensis spp. using electrical stimulus with the intention of providing a more environmentally benign alternative to existing hydraulic and toothed dredges. The results of this study demonstrate that the effects of electrofishing gear employing relatively low DC voltage and amperage can be effectively used in the harvest of Ensis spp. without serious negative effects on the epifaunal and macrofaunal benthic community.

Minutes for the meeting of the Whelk Management Group (WMG) which took place on 20th March 2024 via Microsoft Teams.

Throughout much of the UK, the native oyster remains in a severely depleted state in the wild, having suffered for two centuries with over-exploitation, pests, disease, pollution and harsh winters. The native oyster is a Biodiversity Action Plan Species. Native oyster beds can form a flourishing part of the ecosystem, with many associated species. A significant driver for restoration of native oyster beds should therefore be re-creating and conserving an ecological resource in order to re-establish a biotope that was once common and covered wide areas of the UK inshore seabed.

The Seafish Delivery Report 2012-2015 looks back at performance against KPIs over the previous period and contains details of case studies and key achievements.

The Profitable Futures for Fishing Report identifies actions which would improve vessel business profit in each major segment of the Scottish fleet. Contains the recommended actions which were considered to be top priority or most worthwhile whilst providing insight into the longer term aims and ambitions of the different fleet segments.

The aim of the study was to establish baseline conditions for the abundance and mean size of four species of interest (Pink seafans Eunicella verrucosa, dead men’s fingers Alcyonium digitatum, ross coral Pentapora fascialis and king scallop Pecten maximus) across Lyme Bay shortly after the implementation of four voluntary Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) inside which scallop dredging stopped in September 2006. The research undertaken was the initial stage of a proposed longer-term project to quantify the effectiveness of the reserves in the protection of the reef communities, to examine potential recovery rates in areas that had been exposed to scallop dredging, and to determine if there were fishery spill-over effects arising from increases in scallops within the areas protected from fishing. IPR for this report belongs to the University of Wales, Bangor.