Scottish Pelagic Industry-Science Data Collection Programme

The Scottish Pelagic Industry-Science Data Collection Programme has been developed by scientists from the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association (SPFA), Shetland UHI (SUHI) and the Marine Directorate, with additional industry support from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF). The principal driver for its development was, and remains to be, industry’s motivation to contribute to improvements in the quality and reliability of information used to support scientific advice on pelagic stocks in the Northeast Atlantic. Thus, the main purpose of the programme has been to enable fishers to be active contributors to a process of continuous improvement in the data and evidence that is used by the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) to assess and advise on the state of pelagic fish stocks.

The success of this initiative has been recognised publicly through two awards: the Fishing News Sustainability Award in 2019 and the Marine Stewardship Council Ocean Leadership Award in 2022^[1], and highlighted in a recent video by The Fishmongers’ Company, as part of their Good Practice series.

The programme relies on the voluntary participation of the Scottish pelagic trawler fleet and comprises two parts. The first part, the self-sampling scheme, requires vessel crews to sample fish from every haul of every trip. Fish length and weight data are collected as the fish are pumped onboard, and haul information is recorded to connect the biological sample data to the location and date/time of the catch, and other operational and environmental parameters. The second part, the co-sampling scheme requires samples of fish to be frozen and brought ashore for biological sampling on age, sex and maturity by scientists at the laboratories in Aberdeen and Shetland.

[1] Fishing News Sustainability Award: https://fishingnews.co.uk/features/fishing-news-awards-2019-2/

Marine Stewardship Council Ocean Leadership Award 2022: https://www.msc.org/uk/msc-uk-awards

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