By the end of last month, the Russian fleet had caught 9300 tonnes of capelin, or roughly a third of its quota for this year, according to Vasily Sokolov, deputy head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries.
Under the framework of the Joint Russian-Norwegian Commission, the total capelin quota in the Barents Sea for 2022 is set at 70,000 tonnes, of which the Russian quota is set at 27,800 tonnes. This follows some lean years during which there were zero quota years in 2019 and 2021.
The first of the Russian vessels to start on capelin this year began fishing on 15th February, and was followed by six more.
According to the reports by the Polar Branch of research organisation VNIRO, a key feature of the spring capelin fishery is low migration rates, after which mature capelin can be expected to migrate from overwintering areas from early March onwards, with concentrations forming on the Murmansk Bank and then shifting to the Finmarken Bank.
