Atlantic flatfish fisheries

MILLNER, R.; WALSH, S. J.; DÍAZ DE ASTARLOA, J. M.

Flatfishes. Biology and exploitation

Blackwell & Science

Lugar: Oxford, UK; Año: 2005; p. 240 - 271

Flatfish fisheries occur throughout the Atlantic from the deep Arctic to the southern hemishere fisheries around the coasts of southern Africa and south America and are among the most productive in the world. In 1998 flatfish landings amounted to 440,000 tonnes or some xxx % of the total world flatfish catch with the largest and most heavily exploited occurring in the north Atlantic.. However, even this production is small in comparison to Atlantic fisheries for other demersal species such cod and hake from which over 4.5 million tonnes were landed in 1998 (FAO, 2000). In this chapter, the Atlantic fisheries have been divided into three regions covering the Northeast, Northwest and Southern Atlantic (Figure1).  The Northwest covers the western Atlantic from Greenland across to Labrador and down to Cape Hateras at 350N (FAO area 27). The Northeast Atlantic extends from east Greenland and the Barents Sea in the north down to Gibraltar at latitude 360N and includes FAO area 31. The third area considered covers the whole south Atlantic, including the coasts of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina in the west and Angola, Namibia and South Africa in the east (FAO areas 41 and 47). Although there are productive flatfish fisheries in areas of the central Atlantic such as the shallow coastal region around the North African coast, the absence of detailed statistics has meant that they have not been considered further in this review.