Search results

Barrie Deas, NFFO and Suzannah Walmsley, ABPmer, talked about the NFFO/SFF report: The Frightening Outlook of Fisheries Displacement – Spatial Squeeze in fisheries.

March news alert sent to FMIG subscribers on 24 March 2022.

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.

Following negative reports in the media surrounding wild sea bass , the project set out to improve the traceability and visibility of the sustainable line caught bass fishery. The project set-out to do this through individual tagging of each fish caught and with each vessel engaged in the fishery having its own recognised number which would be shown on a publicly accessible website.

August news alert sent to CLG subscribers on 11 August 2022.

In cooperation with commercial partners, Seafish has developed systems for weighing and labelling of boxed fish at sea in response to market and legislative requirements to provide accurate product defination and provenance at the point of first sale. This report describes how the data required by law or for trading may be captured and handled electronically on landing at small inshore ports to improve marketing and administrative efficiencies.

This is Seafish's response to the call for comments on the draft Marine Conservation Zone Project Ecological Network Guidance to the Regional Stakeholder Groups on Identifying Marine Conservation Zones, put out by Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. The original consultation document is available from http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/100317_ENG_v8-0_tcm6-17607.pdf. Seafish is concerned with the lack of transparency in the development of the draft guidance and with the weak scientific evidence on which the draft guidance is based.

Minutes from Seafish Northern Ireland Advisory Committee (SNIAC) meeting held on 5 April 2023.

September news alert sent to FMIG subscribers on 7 October 2022.

'Off-bottom’ trawling techniques for the sustainable exploitation of non-pressure stocks in Cornish inshore waters.

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.