Assessment of the International Fishery for Shrimp (Pandalus borealis) in Division 3M (Flemish Cap), 1993-2007

• Main Author: Casas-Sánchez, José Miguel
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2007
• Subjects: Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo; Pesquerías; North Atlantic; Northwest Atlantic; Pandalus borealis
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10508/669; http://hdl.handle.net/10261/328678

The development of the international shrimp (Pandalus borealis) fishery in NAFO Division 3M is described. Various indices show that even the stock is in high levels in 2006 and 2007 the lack of good recruitments in the last years and the progressive disappearance of the strong year classes 2001 and 2002 in the next years could lead to the stock decline. The effort in the last years was low due to high cost of oil and low marketing prize of shrimp. Vessels were around 17 in 2005 against 50 in 2004. In 2006 and 2007 there were even fewer vessels fishing for shrimp due to economic reasons. Nominal catch was 32 000 tons in 2005 as compared to 45 500 tons in 2004. The catch in 2007 is only 5 700 tons to 1 September. Noting the lack of reports on catch this figure might increase considerably. The results from the ageing which is based on biological sampling shows a great number of five year olds per hour in 2007 proving the 2002 year-class to be very strong. While the female biomass EU survey stay stable from 1998, the female standardized CPUE is growing since then. However for CPUE there are scanty data in 2007. Indices of recruitment from the commercial fishery are plotted against 3+ CPUE are found to show a good relationship between age 2 in numbers and CPUE of 3+ two years later. The recruitment indices of both commercial fishery and EU survey show a very strong 2002 year-class and a much weaker 2003 year-class. The 2004 and 2005 year-class being also very small.