Fish Update Briefing, Friday, December 14

POLAR SEAFOOD FOUNDER FOUND DEAD
ANDERS Jonas Brøns, the 68-year-old founder of Greenland based Polar Seafood, has been found dead near the harbour of Aalborgin, Denmark. His death is thought to be either accidental or due to natural causes. He launched Polar Seafood in 1984 as the sales and marketing company for a number of independently owned Greenland prawn trawlers. It is now one of the top seafood exporters in Scandinavia and the largest privately owned company in Greenland, employing 900 people in Greenland and Denmark. Listed as one of Denmark’s richest people, Anders Jonas Brøns had been attending a dinner at a restaurant in Aalborf harbour.
NORWAY AND GREENLAND AGREE EXCHANGE
NORWAY and Greenland have agreed an exchange deal on fishing quotas between the two countries for next year. Included in Greenland\’s quota in the Barents Sea in 2019 is 4,000 tonnes of cod and 900 tonnes of haddock. Greenland will also receive a quota of up to 300 tonnes of by-catch of other species. In return, Norwegian vessels can catch cod, halibut and some other species on both the east and west side of Greenland. Norway’s fisheries minister, Harald Tom Nesvik, said it was a good deal for his country’s industry.
GREEN LIGHT FOR AQUACULTURE EXPANSION
THE Icelandic fishing company Samherji has been given the go-ahead to increase the production of Atlantic salmon and Arctic char at its fish farm in the north east of the country. The Icelandic Environment Agency said the company can almost double output of both species from 1,600 tonnes to 3,000 tonnes. Samherji’s main operations involve deep sea fishing and fish processing both in Iceland, mainland Europe and the UK. But it is steadily growing its fish farming operations, and earlier this year all of its aquaculture activities were merged under a single subsidiary called Samherji Fiskeldi ehf.
JAPANESE QUAKE FISH FOUND OFF CALIFORNIA
A BLACK and white striped beakfish normally only native to Japan and South Korea has been discovered in a cove near Monterey Bay in California. It has also been dubbed ‘tsunami fish’ because scientists think it swam the 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean following the disastrous Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Divers in Monterey have spotted the fish several times and say it is unlike any other local form of marine life. It may have hitch-hiked its way to the US on debris from the earthquake.