Information regarding Marine Scotland trawlers: EIR release

Information requested

1. As the catch of the above trawlers is not landed or processed at a UK port, how does Marine Scotland police their catch in terms of size and species?

2. How many fishery protection vessels are operated by Marine Scotland?

3. Why does your trawler Alba na Mara not carry clearly identifiable port of registration letters? This is a legal requirement for all fishing vessels in UK waters.

The "above trawlers" from your original request are "Wiron 5 and 6, Frank Bonefaas registered at Hull UK, Afrika and Carolien registered at Scheveningen, Netherlands" as well as "Willem Van Der Zwan SCH302" from your subsequent email of 9 August also.

Response

1. The monitoring of catches at point of landing is the responsibility of the authority that administers these vessels. None of these vessels are administered by Marine Scotland. You would therefore need to direct your enquiry to either the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) in the case of the English registered vessels, and to the Netherlands authorities in terms of the others.

However, if our risk analysis identifies these kind of vessels as posing a risk then we will undertake boarding activity and part of that process is inspection and analysis of the vessel's logbooks. These boardings and inspections will include a thorough examination of paperwork, as well as examination of the working decks, the factory area or processing area, and the hold which will include a count of the fish and species on board. Water tanks where fish might be stored can also be "dipped" to ascertain an estimate of the quantity of fish in them.

Of the six vessels that you mention, four of them have been boarded and inspected by Marine Scotland officers in the last 13 months.

2. Three MPV’s, plus 2 x inshore craft. You can read about them here: Marine and fisheries compliance: fleet and aircraft - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

3. The Marine Research Vessel (MRV) Alba na Mara is a registered workboat. It is not a fishing vessel. It undertakes a range of research which includes fishing.

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