Report of the North Sea Young Herring Working Group

At the meeting of the Herring Committee in October 1959 a recommendation was passed that "in furthering the co-ordination of, and progress in, herring larval and recruitment studies, conjoint programmes of work should be drawn up by herring scientists of Germ.any, Denmark, Netherlands, England and Scotland, and that, as part of this programme, interested countries should undertake conjoint research vessel trawling surveys in spring and autumn respectively' 1 • Arising from this recommendation an ad hoc working group, consisting of the representatives of these five countries, met in Copenhagen and drew up plans for implementing it. It was agreed that the objectives of the surveys should be to identify the main centres of abundance of pre-recruit herring in the North Sea, and to determine their racial characteristics in relation to those of the adult stocks. All five countries agreed to participate in achieving these objectives by making surveys in March-April and in September 1960, covering the whole of the North Sea and outer regions of the Skagerak from north of Shetland to the Southern Bight. For the first cruise, in March 1960, the research ships allocated to this project were "Dana", "Willem Beukelsz", "Ernest Holt", "Anton Dohrn" and "Scotia". "Dana" broke down immediately prior to the beginning of the survey and was unable to participate. However, Danish scientists mounted an intensive sampling and statistics collection from the Danish industrial fishery, in order to sample as completely as possible the area which should have been covered by "Dana". The second cruise was carried out in September 1960 by the same ships with the exception of "Ernest Holt", which was replaced by "Sir Lancelot". At the meeting of the Herring Committee in Moscow in October 1960 it was agreed that these surveys should be continued in 1961 along the same lines as in 1960, because one year's data were considered insufficient to give conclusive results. At the meeting of the Herring Committee in October 1961 it was agreed that these young herring trawling surveys should be discontinued in 1962, pending the full analysis of the data collected. It was also decided that the help of the Comparative Fishing Committee should be sought in the estimation of the relative fishing powers of the ships taking part in these surveys.