Can fish stocks run out?

Fish is the most important natural resource provided by Finnish waters. Fish stocks will not run out as long as we maintain sustainable fish populations.

Regeneration of fish populations is a precondition for preserving the fish fauna. In practice this means that enough fry must be produced, and juvenile fish must mature and make up the next generation. For this, sufficient numbers of breeding fish as well as suitable and safe sites for spawning and the fry are needed. Overfishing and environmental changes may interfere with the regeneration of fish stocks.

Fishing is regulated in many ways to ensure that it remains sustainable. The European Union sets commercial fishing quotas for the Baltic Sea based on information concerning the status of fish stocks. The Natural Resources Institute Finland regularly monitors the salmon, Baltic herring and European sprat populations in the Baltic Sea. Finnish fishing regulations additionally contain provisions on the minimum size limits for fish species that are caught, as well as permitted trap types and closed periods for fishing.

Stocking and other measures can also be used to manage the fish fauna: for example, salmon populations are bolstered by both stocking and building better fish passes, which allow breeding fish to swim upstream to their spawning grounds. In lakes affected by eutrophication, the structure of fish stocks can be rebalanced by intensive fishing that targets excessively dense cyprinid fish populations.

No management measures will make any difference, however, if a water area is in such poor condition that its original fish fauna can no longer live there. We will only have plentiful fish stocks in the future if we take good care of the ecological status of both the Baltic Sea and our inland waters.