Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea: 1950-present, Rossing, Booth and Zeller 127 CATCH RECONSTRUCTION FOR LATVIA IN THE BALTIC SEA FROM

• Main Authors: Peter Rossinga, Maris Plikshsb, Shawn Bootha, Liane Veitcha, Dirk Zellera
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Gadus morhua
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.611.2241; http://www.seaaroundus.org/baltic/docs/Latvia-Rossing-2010.pdf

Total marine fisheries catches by Latvia in the Baltic Sea (or its equivalent entity prior to separation from the USSR in 1991) were estimated from 1950-2007 using an approach called ‘catch reconstruction’. ICES landing statistics (which only report commercial landings) formed the baseline of the reconstruction, to which we added ‘adjustments to ICES landing statistics ’ (particularly disaggregated data from when Latvia was part of the USSR), estimates of unreported landings, estimates of discards, and estimates of recreational catches. The reconstructed catch from 1950-2007 is approximately 4.7 million tonnes, attributing an additional 3.5 million tonnes to Latvia above catches reported by ICES for independent Latvia. From 1991-2007 when ICES landing statistics were reported for Latvia independently, our reconstructed catch was 28 % higher than their reported 1.2 million tonnes. The most commercially important species are herring (Clupea harengus), sprat (Sprattus sprattus), and cod (Gadus morhua). We believe that this reconstruction represents a conservative estimate.