Commercial fisheries sampling

The most important data for stock assessments come from the commercial fisheries. We regularly sample their catches to determine how many fish are taken from the sea each year.

Our at-sea observers go onboard on randomly selected commercial cutters in the Baltic Sea yearround, where they analyze the catches and, in particular, the discards at sea. Sub-samples from these trips and self-samples frpom the fisheries are processed in our laboratory to record important biological information such as age, maturity or stomach contents. The German data are then compiled with those from other fishing nations and the international dataset is used for the yearly stock assessment of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). From these modells catch forecasts can be derived that ultimately result in catch quotas for the coming year.