Following the meeting of the council, it was recommended to prepare a biological justification for the restoration of specialized fishing for mullet with ring seines in the Sea of Azov with the expansion of fishing areas.
The mullet is a species of marine fish from the mullet family, which was successfully acclimatized in the Sea of Azov in the 20th century. This species is a valuable commercial species, so assessing the state of its population is very important for identifying trends in stock changes, determining the volume of permissible commercial removal of the species, and developing tactics for the rational exploitation of commercial stocks.
In 2024, based on the analysis of coastal hazel fishery monitoring, it was found that the catches of set nets had a low proportion of older hazel fish. To clarify this situation, a winter trawl survey was conducted at the end of the year to assess the hazel stock in the Sea of Azov.
During the research cruise, scientists surveyed the entire water area of the Sea of Azov itself and part of the Taganrog Bay, and carried out trawling along a standard grid of stations. According to the survey data, hazel fish were observed almost throughout the entire water area of the sea. At the same time, yearlings and two-year-olds prevailed in the southwestern and central parts, and the highest concentrations of commercial-sized individuals were in the eastern part of the Sea of Azov. The hazel population taken into account in the survey was represented by 8 age groups, with a predominance of 5-8-year-old individuals (52% by number). The results of the winter trawl survey confirmed the forecasts of scientists from the Azov-Black Sea branch of VNIRO about the productivity of the mullet generations.
Considering the fact that the increase in the salinity of the waters of the Sea of Azov is a favorable factor for the natural reproduction of mullet and contributes to an increase in its population, it can be said that mullet is again restoring its role as a priority fishery object at sea.
Press service of VNIRO