With the season usually approaching its final stages by this time of year, Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Institute has approved a belated and very small quota for this winter’s capelin fishery – just 8589 tonnes – the smallest capelin quota ever approved.
Fishing companies had largely given up in any hope of a capelin fishery this year, and the focus is already on blue whiting, with a number of pelagic vessels already heading south the fish west of Ireland. All the same, there’s no danger that this small capelin quota will remain uncaught, although a relatively small number of vessels are participating.
‘We’re all excited and pleased. It’s always fun to get to grips with capelin, even though the quota’s hardly anything,’ said Thorkell Pétursson, skipper of Síldarvinnslan’s pelagic vessel Barði.
‘A soon as the purse seine is on board we’ll be heading for Faxaflói, and that’s probably where the capelin are by now. I understand that the plan is to process female fish for the Japanse market and the male fish for Eastern Europe.’
This quota has been allocated on the basis of surveys that research vessel Árni Friðriksson and commercial vessels Polar Ammassak and Heimaey have undertaken off the north of Iceland, and the February results have indicated a greater volume of capelin than was seen in the January surveys.
