VARPE reported on the restoration of fishing

By March 10, fish catch in the Azov-Black Sea basin reached 10.8 thousand tons — almost 20% more than the same indicator in 2024. The main fishing facility is khamsa, its production amounted to 9.8 thousand tons, the All—Russian Association of Fisheries Enterprises, Entrepreneurs and Exporters (VARPE) told Izvestia on March 18.

"At the beginning of the year, due to the emergency in the Kerch Strait, catch rates in the Azov-Black Sea basin lagged slightly behind last year's figures. This was due to the forced transfer of the fleet to other fishing areas, and to uncertainty due to the possible impact of an emergency on the safety of aquatic biological resources," explained German Zverev, President of VARPE.

According to him, the coordinated actions of the regulatory authorities and fishermen allowed the industry to quickly rebuild and restore the pace of fishing. According to the Association of Fishermen of the Crimea and Sevastopol, the extraction of hamsa, the main fishing facility, is proceeding normally, still at a considerable distance from the coast and the place of emergency. The fishing environment is good.

In mid-February, following the results of the weekly meeting of the Board of Directors for the coordination of emergency response, the government announced that the data from measurements of samples of air, drinking water, and biological resources conducted by Rospotrebnadzor laboratories remained normal.

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"Over the past three months, all 100% of the samples taken for analysis have confirmed the safety of the captured catches. The Azov-Black Sea basin is the smallest of the country's five fisheries basins: in 2024, 35.5 thousand tons of fish were caught there, which is less than 1% of the total catch in Russia," the association of fishermen of Crimea and Sevastopol told VARPE.

Fishing in the Black and Azov Seas plays an important social role: several thousand fishermen find work here, and fish from the Black Sea is not only used for the production of popular canned food, but also becomes the hallmark of an important tourist region. Species such as hamsa, sprats, mullet, herring, horse mackerel, flounder, mutton and others are caught in this area. Almost all the catch goes to the domestic market.

Earlier, on January 2, the press service of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation reported that 2.4 thousand tons of petroleum products had entered the Black Sea after the tanker crash. Tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 crashed in the Kerch Strait on December 15 due to bad weather. On behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a working group has been set up to coordinate work to eliminate the consequences of the emergency.

The head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said on January 8 that the situation with fuel oil emissions in Crimea could worsen, and the risk of increased pollution was high.