01 Aug 2000 -
0-group herring found recently in Faroes waters support optimistic perspective for Norwegian Spring Spawners

The Norwegian Spring Spawning herring stock in the NE-Atlantic traditionally spawns along the Norwegian coast. The larger the stock is the further south the spawning will occur. Lately the stock was found to spawn from near the Lofoten Islands all the way along the coast to southern Norway. Now for the fist time there seem to be indications that some spawning might have occurred also on the Faeroese Plateau.

Hjalti i Jákupsstovu, Head of the Fisheries Laboratory at Torshavn, Faroese Islands, informed us that "during the just completed annual 0-group survey, 0-group herring was found distributed throughout the entire Faroe Plateau with the highest concentrations on the east side. Since the 0-group surveys started in the mid seventies, only single specimens of herring have been caught in some years, and in many years none at all. This year the total numbers of 0-group herring in the catches outnumbered the catches of 0-group cod. We assume the herring to be offspring of spring spawners as herring with running gonads was caught in the spring bottom trawl survey. There is, nevertheless, a need to verify this, and offers to help/suggestions are very welcome.
"The productivity, both primary and secondary, is the highest observed since we started to monitor this (1989), and we assume that to be the main reason for the high number of 0-group from a number of other species. There were no observations of shoals of adult herring in the spring, and the 0-group herring most likely originates from a small number of spawners, which have had very good feeding conditions, near to zero competition and predation.
"With the hope that the herring are spring spawners, we are looking forward to spring spawning herring spawning in significant quantities at Faroes in the years to come, as they did up to 1968.

entered by (Date)
Cornelius Hammer (01-08-00)