European hake

Northern hake is not overfished and not subject to overfishing.The most recent stock assessment was published by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) in 2022, using data up to 2022. It defines reference points for fishing pressure (F) and biomass (B). For fishing pressure, there is a target to keep F at or below Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). For biomass, there is no target. However, there is a trigger point (MSY BTrigger). Below this level, F should be reduced to allow the stock to increase. Because BMSY is not defined, the Good Fish Guide applies its own definition of 1.4 x MSY BTrigger. The stock assessment was benchmarked in 2022, and the new estimates of stock size are 71% larger over time. Estimates of spawning stock biomass (SSB) now only include females, whereas previously they included males as well.The spawning-stock biomass (SSB) has increased substantially from being outside biologically safe levels in 2006 (around 45,000 tonnes) to peak at almost 300,000t in 2015. It has since declined to 186,358t in 2022. This is well above MSY Btrigger (78,405t). The stock is therefore not in an overfished state.Fishing mortality (F) decreased significantly between 2005 and 2012, and has been fluctuating below levels associated with Maximum Sustainable Yield (FMSY, 0.24) since then. In 2021 it was 0.184 - below FMSY. The stock is therefore not subject to overfishing.ICES advises that when the MSY approach is applied, catches in 2023 should be no more than 83,130 tonnes. This is an 11% increase on the previous year's advice, because of revised new stock assessment.There is some uncertainty in this stock assessment. The biomass surveys don't cover the entire stock distribution area, and changes in distribution are known to increase uncertainty in the assessment. Analyses show that the new assessment tends to revise historical SSB downwards and F upwards when a new year’s data is added. If this pattern continues, this may result in an inflated advised catch.

Emergency management of this stock in 2001 has recovered it to very good levels. Ongoing management measures appear to be controlling the fishery, but discarding can be an issue in some areas and catch limits do not cover all of the countries accessing the stock.Northern hake is a shared stock between the UK, EU, and Norway. There is no joint management plan, although one is being considered. The main management measure is to set catch limits (Total Allowable Catches, TACs).ICES recommends catch limits for the northern hake stock as a whole. However, TACs apply only to the UK and EU member states and waters, so there is potential for overfishing if other states are accessing the stock (e.g. Norway). The agreed TACs were set just below the scientific advice between 2016 and 2019, and in 2021. However, in 2020 and 2022, the TACs exceeded the advice by 8% and 5% respectively. In both cases, ICES had recommended a greater than 20% decrease in catch, but hake TACs can't change by more than 20% in one year, so TACs remained above the advice.Between 2017 and 2021, actual catches averaged 88,684 tonnes, which equates to 76% of the advice (117,801t). This could be an indication that the stock biomass has been overestimated. Caution is needed because hake are fast growing with a high natural mortality rate, so if the biomass starts to decline it could drop rapidly. A Harvest Control Rule would help to mitigate this, as it would reduce exploitation rates when certain biological reference points are approached.Overall, currently, catch limits appear to be set in line with scientific advice and actual catches are within these limits.Other measures include:Minimum conservation reference size: hake can legally be caught and sold at 27cm (30cm in Skagerrak and Kattegat). Below this size, hake have to be landed but can't be sold for human consumption and so have a lower value. Hake mature at around 35-45cm, so this doesn't prevent juveniles from being caught.Landing obligation: it is illegal to discard unwanted (e.g. below-minimum-size, BMS) hake at sea. Overall, around 6% of the catch has been discarded in the last three years, and discarding rates have decreased since 2015. However, discarding of juvenile hake (both above and below MCRS) can be substantial in some areas and fleets, particularly gillnetting. Recently, discarding of large individuals increased because of quota restrictions in certain fleets. Continued monitoring is required.An Emergency Plan was brought in in 2001 to recover the stock, involving a TAC reduction and minimum mesh size of 100mm (depending on vessel size, location and proportion of hake in the total catch). It included targets for increasing stock size and reducing fishing mortality, and limited changes in TAC from year to year. The stock is now in a very good state, and fishing pressure is at sustainable levels, although this has been strongly influenced by good spawning years in 2008 and 2012.Both the EU and UK have various fishery management measures in place. In the EU, compliance with regulations has been variable, and there are ongoing challenges with implementing some of them. The Landing Obligation (LO), an EU law that the UK has kept after Brexit, requires all quota fish to be landed, even if they are unwanted (over-quota or below minimum size). It aims to promote more selective fishing methods, reduce bycatch, and improve recording of everything that is caught, not just what is wanted. Compliance with the LO is generally poor and actual levels of discards are difficult to quantify using the current fisheries observer programme. UK administrations are in the process of replacing the landing obligation with country-specific Catching Policies.In the UK, it is too early to tell how effective management is, as the Fisheries Act only came into force in January 2021. The Act requires the development of Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs) (replacing EU Multi-Annual Plans). FMPs are currently in development, but the scope of them remains unclear. They have the potential to be very important tools for managing UK fisheries, although data limitations may delay them for some stocks. MCS is keen to see publicly available FMPs for all commercially exploited stocks, especially where stocks are depleted, that include:Targets for fishing pressure and biomass, and additional management when those targets are not being met, based on the best available scientific evidenceTimeframes for stock recoveryImproved data collection, transparency and accountability, supported by technologies such as Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM)Consideration of wider environmental impacts of the fishery

Some hake is caught by longlining. Longlining can have a bycatch of vulnerable species such as sharks and seabirds, and may be contributing to the population decline of fulmars.Hake catches are fairly evenly split between longlines, gillnets, and bottom trawls, each accounting for around 30% of the catch.ICES reports large scale bycatch of great shearwaters in the Spanish hake longline fishery on the Grand Sole fishing bank, southwest of the UK and Ireland. A global review estimated the seabird bycatch in 2006-7 from this fishery to be over 56,000 seabirds. This was the worst performing longline fishery, globally, although it was based on limited data and may be an overestimate. Since then, some parts of the fleet have worked to improve mitigation measures, including bird scaring devices, hook design, or fishing at times when seabirds are not active. While this level of bycatch is concerning, great shearwaters are not threatened or declining.There is also bycatch of northern fulmars in the northern North Sea and west of Scotland. This species is listed as endangered in Europe. Bycatch estimates are very uncertain, as observer coverage is very low. For the UK offshore longline fleet, which is mainly targeting hake, they range from around 2,000-9,000 fulmars per year, with a point estimate of around 5,000. While much of the UK longline fleet is implementing bycatch mitigation, studies have noted that other longline fleets are also accessing the hake stock and bycatch mitigation may not be in place for all of them. Total mortality of fulmars could therefore be underestimated. The fulmar population from a census in 1998-2002 was around 500,000, but it is thought to have declined by as much as 50% since then. The cause of this decline is unclear, and could be related to reductions in the amount of fish and offal being discarded at sea by trawlers. However, a recent study estimated that removing all bycatch mortality for the species in the UK could allow a population increase of 2% over 25 years.ACAP (the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels) recommends best practice for reducing seabird bycatch in longline fisheries. This includes the simultaneous use of weighted hooks, bird scaring lines and night setting, or hook-shielding or underwater bait setting devices. A recent review of the longline hake fishery in offshore Scottish waters found that the best practice was not being met, and more research and mitigation measures were needed.MCS therefore considers it likely that hake longlining is contributing to population decline of fulmars, and / or is preventing recovery.There may also be bycatch of skates, rays, and sharks. More data is needed to understand the level of catch and impact that this is having.