Fang, Anlandungen, Discard und Bestand der Nordsee-garnele (Crangon crangon L.)

Landings of brown shrimp (Crangon crangon) for human consumption are not the only part that is taken from the North Sea shrimp stocks. Small amounts of industrial shrimps taken in the second half of a year in Germany add as well to the total amount that is taken from the stocks as the moribund animals discarded all over the year during the first sieving process on board, as the cooked and discarded ones in the second sieving on board and as those from the third sieving process ashore normally being crushed and used for animal feed stuff. All these fractions of the total catch of brown shrimps give a total of approximately 74 000 tonnes that were taken from the North Sea in 2005. Nevertheless, due to low predator abundance and changing climate conditions Crangon stocks show no signs of overexploitation so far with increasing LPUE values in the north-eastern part of the German Bight and decreasing ones in the south-east and Channel. There is the need of further investigations of these changes in the life history and distribution of shrimp as well as in the fishing behaviour and effort of the shrimp fleets .