Scampi or langoustine

In the Skagerrak and Kattegat, scampi, often referred to as Nephrops or Norway lobster, is data limited. There does not appear to be concern for the biomass, and fishing pressure is below the target level.Route 2 scoring has been applied to this rating owing to the uncertainty of the data and the lack of reference points for biomass. Norway lobster is considered to have a medium resilience to fishing pressure.Stock abundance in 2022 is estimated to be 3,138 million individuals. Abundance has steadily declined from a peak of 5,152 million in 2017. There is no threshold or reference to indicate what a sustainable stock size would be. However, landings per unit of effort have been increasing and are at a long-term high level. ICES has concluded that there are no signs of over-exploitation in this stock. Therefore, there is no concern for the biomass.The total catch in 2022 was 7,110 tonnes. This is equivalent to a harvest rate of 4.7% of the population (by number). This is below the level associated with Maximum Sustainable Yield (FMSY, 7.9%), indicating that the stock is not subject to overfishing. Therefore, there is no concern for fishing pressure.ICES advises that when the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) approach is applied, and assuming that discard rates and fishery selection patterns do not change from the average of the years 2020-2022, catches in 2024 should be no more than 11,863 tonnes. This is a 1.7% decrease from the previous year's advice.A 2011 study on Norway lobster in the Clyde found a high prevalence of plastics and suggested that this could have implications for the health of the stock - this may have relevance for other Norway lobster stocks. Some of the plastics were sourced to fishing waste. Studies have shown that the effects of climate change - warmer waters, reduced oxygen levels, higher ocean acidity, and higher levels of heavy metals - can negatively impact Norway lobsters' larval development and make adults more susceptible to disease. Lower oxygen levels can also cause Norway lobster to leave their burrows, making them easier to catch.

Some management measures are in place for Norway lobster in the Skagerrak and Kattegat, and catches are within recommended limits. However, discarding of unwanted catch is high and needs to be reduced.Norway lobster stock assessments are conducted by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Stock assessments are produced for 33 areas across the Northeast Atlantic, called Functional Units (FUs). However, management is applied to 18 areas, called management units. In general, management units broadly overlap with the functional units, but not very effectively. However, in this area, the stock unit and management unit match.This stock is mainly fished by Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and managed through the EU's North Sea Multi Annual management Plan (MAP). This MAP covers eleven FUs: 3-10, and 32-34. It provides guidance on setting catch limits, and FU-specific management measures can be introduced if individual stocks are found to be below sustainable levels.Catch limits (Total allowable Catches, TACs) are specific to this Norway lobster stock. They have been in line with or below the advice every year since 2012. Actual catches (including discards) have stayed within those limits. This is contrast to other areas, where catch limits are set for multiple stocks combined, allowing overexploitation in some areas. The TAC in 2022 and 2023 was for 8,501 tonnes.In addition to catch limits, Denmark and Sweden incentivise the use of more selective fishing gear to reduce bycatch of unwanted species and undersized Norway lobster. In Sweden, 30% of the quota is allocated to creels, 50% to grid trawls and the remaining 20% to other trawls. Swedish fleets must use a species-selective grid, with a certain mesh size for part of the net. Danish fleets must use either the grid or a SELTRA trawl which has a larger-meshed net and an escape panel.There is Minimum Conservation Reference Size of 25mm in the North Sea, and 32mm in the Skagerrak and Kattegat. Below this size, Norway lobster must be landed but can't be sold for human consumption, and so have a lower value. Under the EU Landings Obligation (LO) and Norwegian law, it is illegal to discard unwanted (e.g. undersized or over-quota) Norway lobster at sea. However, there are exemptions in this area, because this species survives well after being discarded (25-50% survival rate), even from trawlers. Discarding is still allowed in all creel fisheries and throughout the Skagerrak. Discard rates for this stock have been high, at around 30% by number, and scientists recommend further work to reduce it.

Most Norway lobster in this area is caught by otter trawling, which can damage sensitive mud habitats. In this fishery, there could be bycatch of the Kattegat cod stock, which is at dangerously low levels. However, there are some measures in place to reduce these impacts.Norway lobster in the Skagerrak and Kattegat are mainly caught by trawling, which accounts for 95% of catches. Usually, Norway lobster trawlers use a small net mesh, which can result in higher bycatch than the nets used to trawl for species such as cod or haddock. However, in this area, most catches are by Denmark and Sweden, who incentivise the use of more selective fishing gear to reduce bycatch. Swedish fleets use a species-selective grid, with a certain mesh size for part of the net. Danish fleets must use either the grid or a SELTRA trawl which has a larger-meshed net and an escape panel.In this area, there is a risk that Norway lobster trawls can bycatch Kattegat cod which is at dangerously low levels. Scientists recommend that there should be zero catch of Kattegat cod. Most catches are caught as bycatch in the Norway lobster fishery (responsible for 92% of cod catches from 2009-2022). As a result, increases to Norway lobster quotas are likely to lead to increases in Kattegat cod catches. The Swedish sorting grid has a bycatch of less than 1.5% of cod in the Norway lobster fishery, but uptake of this gear has decreased since 2016. However, there is uncertainty about how much mortality of Kattegat cod is from fishing, and how much is from natural mortality, including seal predation.The majority of the Danish and Swedish Norway lobster fleets follow codes of conduct that include minimising unwanted bycatch by controlling when and where fishing happens and by using selective gear. Vessels share information about locations of unwanted bycatch. Environmental impacts are minimised through fuel use, lower impact gears, and pollution and litter control. In addition, there are some closed areas in the Kattegat to protect cod spawning areas. Given these efforts to minimise bycatch, and the uncertainty over fishing mortality versus natural mortality, we consider that bycatch level is likely to have an impact on Kattegat cod, but that there may be other factors preventing stock recovery.Other bycatch could include skates, rays and sharks. These species are relatively hardy, and can survive when they are discarded, but their survival rates largely depend on how they were caught and handled.Norway lobster are mainly found in soft mud, and therefore trawling for this species takes place primarily on mud habitats. Mud habitats feature on the OSPAR list of threatened and declining species due to the burrowing megafauna, which provide a complex habitat with deep oxygen penetration. Species that live in these habitats include the long-lived and slow-growing ocean quahog, polychaetae worms, soft corals and tall sea-pens. Mud is very disturbed by fishing specifically. A 2023 OSPAR report showed that 87% of offshore circalittoral mud has been subjected to high disturbance, suggesting that this habitat has not been suitably protected. Disturbance from trawl gear on the seabed, especially over long periods of time, is likely to affect the structure, species composition, and biodiversity of the burrowed mud community.There are Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in this Functional Unit, some of which are designated to protect seabed features from damaging activities. This fishery overlaps with parts of these MPAs, but the proportion of the catch coming from these areas is expected to be relatively low in relation to the unit of assessment (i.e. less than 20% of the catch), and so these impacts have not been assessed within the scale of this rating. Given the important role that MPAs have in recovering the health and function of our seas, MCS encourages the supply chain to identify if their specific sources are being caught from within MPAs. If sources are suspected of coming from within designated and managed MPAs, MCS advises businesses to establish if the fishing activity is operating legally inside a designated and managed MPA, and request evidence from the fishery or managing authority to demonstrate that the activity is not damaging to protected features or a threat to the conservation objectives of the site(s).