Fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

is concentrated in the southern part of the coastal waters. The main method of fishing is

trawling Trawling is an industrial method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch di ...

. Annual catches grew each year until the 1980s, when a high point of more than 3 million metric tons (3.3 million S/T) was reached. Since then, the numbers have fallen back to around 2.3 million tons (2.5 million S/T) annually with considerable differences between years. Besides the fish caught, it is estimated that 150,000 metric tons (165,000 S/T) of unmarketable

by-catch Bycatch (or by-catch), in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife. Bycatch is either the wrong species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juve ...

are caught and around 85,000 metric tons (94,000 S/T) of dead and injured

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s. Of the caught fish, about half are used for the production of

fish oil Fish oil is oil derived from the tissues of oily fish. Fish oils contain the omega−3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), precursors of certain eicosanoids that are known to reduce inflammation in the bod ...

and

fish meal Fish meal (sometimes spelled fishmeal) is a commercial product made from whole wild-caught fish, bycatch, and fish by-products to feed farm animals, such as pigs, poultry, and farmed fish.R. D. Miles and F. A. Chapman.FA122: The Benefits of Fish ...

History

Sturgeon Sturgeon (from Old English ultimately from Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European *''str̥(Hx)yón''-) is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the ...

shad The Alosidae, or the shads, are a family (biology), family of clupeiform fishes. The family currently comprises four genera worldwide, and about 32 species. The shads are Pelagic fish, pelagic (open water) schooling fish, of which many are anadr ...

rays Ray or RAY may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), the bony or horny spine on ray-finned fish Science and mathematics * Half-line (geometry) or ray, half of a line split at an ...

skate Skate or Skates may refer to: Fish *Skate (fish), several genera of fish belonging to the family Rajidae * Pygmy skates, several genera of fish belonging to the family Gurgesiellidae * Smooth skates or leg skates, several genera of fish belongin ...

s and

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

among other species were common in the North Sea into the 20th century, when numbers declined due to

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing Fish stocks, fish stock), resu ...

. Other factors like the introduction of

non-indigenous species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...

, industrial and

agricultural pollution Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The po ...

and

dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...

, human-induced

eutrophication Eutrophication is a general term describing a process in which nutrients accumulate in a body of water, resulting in an increased growth of organisms that may deplete the oxygen in the water; ie. the process of too many plants growing on the s ...

, construction on coastal breeding and feeding grounds, sand and gravel extraction, offshore construction, and heavy shipping traffic have also contributed to the decline. Sturgeon

Various agreements have been made in the course of history. A 15th-century document illustrates shared use, and the "London convention on fisheries" was signed in 1964. The OSPAR commission manages the OSPAR convention to counteract the harmful effects of human activity on wildlife in the North Sea, preserve endangered species, and provide environmental protection. All North Sea border states are signatories of the

MARPOL 73/78 The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973 as modified by the Protocol of 1978, or "MARPOL 73/78" (short for "marine pollution") is one of the most important international marine environmental conventions. It ...

Accords which preserves the marine environment by preventing pollution from ships. Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands also have a trilateral agreement for the protection of the

Wadden Sea The Wadden Sea ( ; ; or ; ; ; ) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern continental Europe and the range of low-lying Frisian Islands, forming a shallow body of water with tida ...

, or

mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

s, which run along the coasts of the three countries on the southern edge of the North Sea. At the end of the 19th century large quantities of

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

were produced in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. Today mainly

mackerel Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment. ...

Atlantic cod The Atlantic cod (: cod; ''Gadus morhua'') is a fish of the family Gadidae, widely consumed by humans. It is also commercially known as '' cod'' or ''codling''.whiting,

coalfish ''Pollachius virens'' is a species of marine fish in the genus '' Pollachius''. Together with '' P. pollachius'', it is generally referred to in the United States as pollock. It is commonly known in Britain as the coalfish, coley, or saithe ( or ...

European plaice The European plaice (''Pleuronectes platessa''), commonly referred to as simply plaice, is a species of marine flatfish in the genus Pleuronectes of the family Pleuronectidae. Description The European plaice is characterized, on their dorsal ...

, and sole are caught. In addition, common shrimp,

lobster Lobsters are Malacostraca, malacostracans Decapoda, decapod crustaceans of the family (biology), family Nephropidae or its Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on th ...

, and

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

, along with a variety of shellfish are harvested.

Overfishing

In recent decades,

has left many fisheries unproductive, disturbing the marine

food chain A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web, often starting with an autotroph (such as grass or algae), also called a producer, and typically ending at an apex predator (such as grizzly bears or killer whales), detritivore (such as ...

dynamics and costing jobs in the fishing industry. Herring, cod and plaice fisheries may soon face the same plight as mackerel fishing which ceased in the 1970s due to overfishing. Since the 1960s, various regulations have attempted to protect the stocks of fish such as limited fishing times and limited numbers of fishing boats, among other regulations. However, these rules were never systematically enforced and did not bring much relief. Since then, the United Kingdom and Denmark, two important fishing nations, became members of the EU, and have attempted, with the help of the

Common Fisheries Policy The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the fishery, fisheries policy of the European Union (EU). It sets quotas for which Member state of the European Union, member states are allowed to catch each type of fish, as well as encouraging the fishin ...

, to bring the problem under control. Countries in the EU also have their own policies and laws in an attempt to address the problem of overfishing. The differing policies between countries have been blamed as the cause of tension between fishers, such as the 2012 English Channel scallop fishing dispute. Norway, not a member of the EU, has also reached an agreement with the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

concerning fishing policy. Regional advisory committees meet with the EU to help enforce policy. In addition to threats due to food-chain disturbances, non-target species often wind up as victims of intense fishing.

Sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerh ...

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...

harbour porpoise The harbour porpoise (''Phocoena phocoena'') is one of eight extant species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest species of cetacean. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar ...

, and dozens of fish species are killed or injured by trawlers nets and beams. Trawling can also have a destructive effect on seabed habitats as the trawler beams drag along the floor can uproot plants and destroy reefs. All numbers from the FAO, cited by the University of British Columbia. For the FAO, the region "North Sea" includes

Skagerrak The Skagerrak (; , , ) is a strait running between the North Jutlandic Island of Denmark, the east coast of Norway and the west coast of Sweden, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea. The Skagerrak contains some of the busiest shipping ...

and

Kattegat The Kattegat (; ; ) is a sea area bounded by the peninsula of Jutland in the west, the Danish straits islands of Denmark and the Baltic Sea to the south and the Swedish provinces of Bohuslän, Västergötland, Halland and Scania in Swede ...

Notes

References

* Ilyina, P Ilyina (2007) ''The fate of persistent organic pollutants in the North Sea.'' Springer. ) * Karlsdóttir, Hrefna M (2005) ''Fishing on common grounds : the consequences of unregulated fisheries of North Sea herring in the postwar period.'' ) {{fisheries and fishing

North Sea Fish of the North Sea