Emergency management of this stock in 2001 has recovered it to very good levels. Ongoing management measures appear to be controlling exploitation of hake. However, in the Bay of Biscay management has failed to address the impact of the fishery on dolphins and porpoises. Infringement proceedings have been initiated.Hake fishing in the Bay of Biscay is primarily carried out by France and Spain. Bycatch of common dolphin and harbour porpoise in this area appears to be contributing to population-level declines. European legislation does not define a bycatch limit, but it does require countries to reduce and where possible eliminate cetacean bycatch. France and Spain have failed to take the required actions and infringement proceedings have been started by the EU. France’s state council has also ruled that action must be taken.Additional management information on the wider hake fishery is below. 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
