The dynamics of arabesque greenling fishery off south Kuril Islands

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to characterize the biological and commercial indicators of arabesque greenling in the Kunashir Strait during 1998–2022.The basic material for the article was the data collected during the net fishery of arabesque greenling by the fleet of small-tonnage vessels of the Japanese fishing cooperative in the city of Rausu in the eastern (Russian) zone of the Kunashir Strait.Results: It is shown that the stock resources of arabesque greenling in the waters of the southern Kuril Islands have been declining during for a long period of time. Despite a short-term growth of catch per effort in 2018–2021, in 2022 there was again a decrease of fishery indicators. The negative trend of catch per effort is directly associated with the features of dynamics of arabesque greenling resources distributed in Kunashir Strait and in the Sea of Okhotsk waters of Hokkaido.Practical significance: The new information makes it possible to determine the current trends in total biomass changing for commercial fish and to clarify the fishery capabilities of the area in the nearest future.