Wild Wrasse Fishery – Summary up to and including 2024

Summary

• Landings typically peak in August and this is consistent over the years (2021-2024).
• Not all vessels with derogations have fished/reported landings for wrasse.
• Not all vessels that have derogations and have reported landings have submitted scientific datasheets for all years and hence the numbers of wrasse recorded are likely an underestimate and steps are being taken to address this.
• Ballan wrasse are the most common species landed/retained across all years making up over half of landings by number and weight in 2023 and 2024.
• Highest wrasse landings were reported from ICES rectangle 42E4 in both 2023 and 2024.

There are known data quality issues with reported landed weights in the live wild wrasse fishery. Significant improvements have already been made since this data was gathered, including closer collaboration between Compliance, Science and MAU teams to deepen process understanding. In addition, data validation has been enhanced through the introduction of centralised folders, R-based checking scripts and systematic cross-referencing between Compass and IFISH.