Ecomare

An important part of the Danish fish-meal industry runs on lesser sandeel. The fish-meal is primarily used for the salmon farms. There were no regulations with regards to fishing this species till 1998. In 2004, the Danish fishermen developed a steel net with teeth to scrape the lesser sandeel from the bottom. They use this in the winter when the fish species has dug itself into the bottom. In the summer, the fish swims through the water and is then caught using dragging nets. This new method upsets the bottom tremendously and forms a threat for benthic fauna.

After 1982, the lesser sandeel decreased in numbers around the Shetland Islands. It was heavily fished around these islands: the catches grew extremely quickly from 1974 to 1982 from 8000 to 52,000 tons per year. Since 1983, Arctic terns in particular, but also Arctic skuas, kittiwakes, puffins and fulmars have had poor breeding results due to the food shortage. In 1988 and 1989, the colonies of great and Arctic skuas, fulmars and kittiwakes hardly produced any young. In the meantime, the number of Arctic terns had dropped by 70%.
In 1991, the local fisheries for lesser sandeel in the vicinity of Scotland was stopped. The Scottish government proclaimed by the re-opening in 1995 that the protection of the lesser sandeel would be kept closely under surveillance. There is a Total Allowable Catch of 3000 tons per year, a maximum number of ships that are allowed to fish lesser sandeel and a required closure of the fishery every year at the end of June. These rules do not apply for the large-scale industrial catch in the North Sea. In 2004, there were still very few young fish in the seabird colonies. The cause still was a lack of lesser sandeel.