Shellfish landing data ICES 40E7 and 41E7: EIR release

Information requested

Data from the Shellfish Form1 landings data. Specifically landings data for ICES rectangles 40E7 and 41E7 detailing the following:

• Species
• Landed weight
• Number of pots
• Month
• Year
• For the most recent 5-year period available (e.g. 2016 to 2020 or 2017 to 2021)

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.
 

In response to your request for information on landings data from shellfish1 forms for ICES rectangles 40E7 and 41E7, I have attached a file containing the available data for 2017 to 2021. This includes two tables:

• The first table gives information on shellfish caught by 10 metre and under vessels in areas 40E7 and 41E7 using pots or creels by year, month, species and landed weight in tonnes.
• The second table gives information on the number of pots or creels reported to be hauled by 10 metre and under vessels in areas 40E7 and 41E7 by year and month.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to link the information on number of pots hauled to the information on species caught and landed weight, so this has been provided separately. Please note that the information on number of pots or creels that are reported to be hauled is not validated or used for enforcement purposes.

In replying to this request I have assumed, based on the information you requested, that you were only interested in shellfish caught by 10 metre or under Scottish vessels using pots or creels. The reasons for this assumption is that fish1 forms, which replaced the shellfish1 forms you requested, are only used by vessels who are 10 metres or under in length. Additionally, because you requested information on number of pots, I also assumed you were only interested in species caught by this method. Some species of shellfish are caught by other methods such as dredging or hand fishing and these will not be included in these figures.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202200319892 - Information released

File type

Excel document

File size

20.6 kB