State of Lake Onega fish community under fishery pressure

Abstract

The article gives a characteristic of fish catches (2018–2022) in Lake Onega – the main commercial fishery waterbody of Karelia. The official five-year statistics is evidence of the stable development of its fishery sector. Fishing is mostly conducted in the Karelian part of the lake. Decline in captures of all biological resources and predominance of smelt and vendace in the catches are noted. Actual exploitation of commercial fish during the last two years reached 68–78% of TAC and RC. In some years, this indicator even exceeded 100% for some species. Currently, biomass and commercial stocks of the main fishing species vary insignificantly.

Keywords

• fish community
• commercial fish species
• commercial stock
• catches
• rate of fishing
• age and length-weight parameters