Worries over street cred

humans, sandeels are caught and processed into fish meal and oil to make food pellets for salmon farming and livestock feed. Fishing for anchovy should continue to be banned in the Bay of Biscay at least until spring 2007, ICES said. Lying off the Atlantic coast of France and Spain, the Bay of Biscay is the key trawling ground for anchovy, a very shortlived species and widely used in Mediterranean countries. Anchovy fishing was banned in the Bay of Biscay from July 2005 to the end of February 2006 to preserve stocks. The ban was reinstated in July and will last until the end of this year. But, as well as encouraging news on the populations of hake, herring and mackerel, new research has revealed that populations of langoustines in the northeast Atlantic are much larger than previously thought. When cod and other white fish were abundant, langoustines were an almost ignored bycatch. But, given the collapse in these fish species and the tight restrictions on them, fishermen have looked afresh at the langoustines. While there is little interest in them in Britain, they are highly prized in continental Europe, and they have helped maintain fishing boats in Britain and Ireland. A new research project coordinated by researchers at the University of Glasgow in the laboratory and at sea, has led them to suggest a population of more than 10 billion in UK waters. Fishing quotas have been increased by 30 per cent this year. “The more we look, the more we find,” says Douglas Neil, the biologist in charge of Glasgow’s langoustine laboratory. But such abundance will fuel further work on its sustainability. Abundant: New research suggests populations of the highly prized langoustine or Dublin Bay prawn (Nephrops norvegicus) are larger than previously estimated. (Photo: Sue Scott/Oxford Scientific OSF.)