Pikeperch

In many European countries, including The Netherlands, pikeperch is farmed in [recirculation systems] or people are starting the this type of facility.

The benefit of farming pikeperch in recirculation systems is that several possible negative impacts on the environment are effectively limited. Farmed fish cannot escape and spread disease and the waste water is filtered and re-used.

There are still a few points to improve with the farming of pikeperch. Pikeperch are sensible to stress. The mortality during the pikeperch farming is sometimes high and there are occurences of deformed and damaged fins. The causes of which are often unknown. More research on the optimal circumstances for farming pikeperch is needed. As with most farmed fish, the stunning and killing of the fish is not happening in a humane way yet.

In The Netherlands there is, as part of the Duurzaam Snoekbaarscollectief (Sustainable Pikeperch Collective) research done on points of improvement in the area of water quality, preventing diseases, and humane stunning and killing methods.

Pikeperch are predatory fish and the feed of the fish still has a high content of fish meal and fish oil. There is more than 2 kg of wild fish needed for growing 1 kg of pikeperch. The feed is often not sustainable yet because it consists of ingredients that are not produced or caught sustainably.

In Switzerland, Sweden and Estonia (Peipsi lake), the pike-perch are well managed, especially in Sweden there are regular stock estimates. There is no overfishing.

The gillnets and rods used for fishing are reasonably to very selective, cause little or no seabed disturbance and have little or no bycatch.

Management plans are generally well adhered to and monitored.

The pike perch fishery in the IJsselmeer is a mixed fishery. In addition to pike perch, perch, roach and bream are also caught.

The status of the pike-perch stock is over its optimum, the stock is overfished, although there is a positive trend in the spawning stock thanks to a good annual stock in 2017 when many pike-perch were born. In more recent years however, few new fry were born.

Few fish are discarded in this fishery because of the selective mesh size. However, the perch, roach and bream that are also landed in this fishery are not doing well. The pike-perch fishery makes the recovery of these fish species more difficult.