Hake have been heavily overfishedOverfished:
A stock is overfished when the stock size has decreased so far that it can no longer produce a maximum sustainable yield. The size of the fish populations is insufficient to reproduce in the long term. in the past. The fishing pressureFishing pressure:
Fishing pressure is a result of the fishing effort/amount of fishing on a stock, which determines the fishing mortality. Fishing mortality is the share of the fish stock that dies annually as a result of fishing. has now been reduced significantly, but it is questionable whether the stockStock:
The fish of a particular species reproducing in the same area in the same period. will recover within the next few years. To prevent the hake stock from collapsing, fishing pressure must be reduced even further.
Hake are caught with bottomBottom trawls:
A fishing technique in which cone-shaped nets terminating in a codend are dragged through the water column or along the bottom. trawls. Discarding fish back into the sea is a problem with this fishing method. Many of these discardsDiscards:
Unwanted by-catch, which is thrown back because there is no quota, the market price is too low, or the fish is below the legal minimum landing size. Discards can be alive or dead. consist of juvenile hake, as well as vulnerable sharks, rays, birds and whales. Much of the discards do not survive. Bottom trawling also disturbs the seabed. In time, intensive fishing leads to an altered species composition.
After the stockStock:
The fish of a particular species reproducing in the same area in the same period. collapsed in 2004, the managementManagement:
The regulations surrounding fisheries and aquaculture that ensure that production is carried out within legal frameworks and that sustainability can be assured. of hake was tightened up considerably. Unfortunately, this tightened policy has not yet led to stock recovery. Management of this species is not effective.