Sound shellfish science

The NAFC re-affirms the scientific validity of the survey, which uses internationally proven stock assessment methods to provide detailed information on shellfish stocks around Shetland. The release states, ‘this is an invaluable resource for Shetland’s fishermen, letting them know the status of their stocks so that informed management decisions can be made, ensuring that the stocks remain economically and biologically sustainable’. According to the NAFC, the methods used to carry out stock assessments at the Centre, are the same as those carried out for shellfish species throughout the world. The data collected over the last six years is very detailed and includes information from fishermen’s logbooks, and data collected from processing factories, vivier operators and from onboard fishing vessels. This data is much more detailed and at a much finer scale than that collected for fisheries in the rest of the UK and Europe. This means that the input data for the Shetland stock assessments is of a much higher quality than for those done elsewhere. In addition to this, Shetland’s stock assessments are carried out on current information, unlike other programmes where the most recent data is usually two years old.