The Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries has announced that the country’s total catches last year amounted to 4,980,000 tonnes – a 1.3% increase on the 2020 figure.
The bulk of landings took place in the Far East, where 3,520,000 tonnes were landed, around 0.5% down on the previous year. The big species is Alaska pollock with catches of 1,172,000 tonnes. The herring catch came to 408,00 tonnes and cod catches totalled 167,000 tonnes. Other species include 252,000 tonnes of ivasi sardine and 77,000 tonnes of mackerel, plus 539,000 tonnes of Pacific salmon, which represents an 80% increase on the previous year’s catch.
The northern fishery in the Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea returned landings of 532,480 tonnes, up 7.2% on 2020’s catch figures. Cod landings amounted to 344,910 tonnes (up 35,790 tonnes) and 96,000 tonnes of haddock (up 8670 tonnes) were caught.
Baltic landings were down 7.8% compared to 2020, with 41,860 tonnes of sprat and 22,440 tonnes of Baltic herring landed.
In the Sea of Azov and Black Sea overall catches were also down, with 23,830 tonnes of anchovy landed and the sprat fishery was up on the 2020 landing figures with 21,120 tonnes landed. The Volga-Caspian fishery showed a catch increase of 23% to 99,670 tonnes, with the increase primarily in the 31,530 tonnes of sprats landed.
According to the Federal Agency for Fisheries, Russian vessels fishing in the EEZs of other states had catches of 71,800 tonnes, an increase of 22.8% on the 2020 figures, while catches in international waters dropped by 12% compared to 2020 to 252,000 tonnes.
