Bioresource capacity of the black sea and its development by the national fishery in the XX and XXI centuries

Abstract

In this paper, the history of the formation, dynamics of structure, and species composition of the main objects of the national fishery in the Black Sea from the moment of the fall of the Crimean Khanate in 1783 up to today are analyzed, as well as the structure of commercial biological resources of the sea formed throughout the geological history of development of the Ponto-Caspian Basin (more than 30 million years). The geography and catch composition, scales, and methods of fish harvesting in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are examined. The stages of intensification and reduction of fish harvesting success and the causes of these fluctuations (natural dynamics of population abundance, press of predatory species, hydrotechnical construction, marine pollution, overfishing, poaching) are identified. The author shows that at the end of the twentieth century, the Russian fishing industry entered a depressed state, while the other Black Sea countries increased their average annual total catch. At the same time, starting at the beginning of the twenty-first century, due to the lessening of press of warty comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi), a decrease in the level of oil and chemical pollution of coastal and shelf waters in the northern Black Sea, and a reduction in industrial production on the seacoast and watershed territories, the ecological situation in the Russian territorial waters improved significantly and many formerly commercial fish populations started to recover.