The quota for anchovies from Peru is set at 2.3 million tons a 184% increase of last year’s 810,000t quota.
The increase is just shy of the 2.5m ton quota fishermen were expecting after the initial survey by Imarpe, Peru’s fisheries management organization; and it represents about 20% of the biomass level estimated at between 10.8m and 12.1m by the latest survey.
Stephan Palinginis, whose company Santa Monica fishes anchovy to supplement its main hake business, emphasized the news bodes well for the health of the stock.
“At the end of the day, it shows a stronger biomass, so if it’s a stronger biomass of anchovy, it shows that the management of the resource is well done,” Palinginis told Undercurrent News.
This huge increase in quota brings the fishery back into historically normal quota ranges after last year’s 68% quota reduction imposed for last year’s second season. It also puts fishermen in a position to somewhat make up for the disappointing quota for this year’s first anchovy fishing season, when the quota was down 34%, to 2.05m tons.
That decrease was already an improvement over last year’s, however, considering that quotas for the two seasons of 2012 were nearly halved to 3.51m metric tons, compared to 6.175m in 2011.
In addition to the 2.3m ton quota given for the second season of this year, authorities gave quota of 430,000t for the south region.
Peru has two fishing seasons a year, with the first usually running from May to July, and the second running from November to the end of January.