SEAFISH has launched its 2025 survey of Scotland’s fishing fleet and the body is calling on boats around Argyll and Bute to take part.
It’s part of the annual Fishing Fleet Survey and is scheduled to be completed by September.
Researchers will carry out interviews with skippers and vessel owners to collect data on business performance and crew demographics, providing an opportunity to give feedback on the state of the industry.
Seafish remains the only organisation that captures a complete set of financial information from the UK fishing fleet.
The data collected during the survey is essential to help create Seafish’s Economics of the UK Fishing Fleet and Employment in the UK Fishing Fleet reports.
The data collected can help policymakers make informed decisions and offer valuable insights into how the industry is navigating socio-economic challenges such as labour shortages and economic fluctuations.
Early insights from the current report suggest that, following several challenging years, 2023 and 2024 showed a gradual return to normality for the UK fishing fleet.
It suggests fishing activity returned to pre-pandemic levels for many fleet segments, but the size of the UK fleet has continued to decrease.
Total fishing income in the fleet reached £1.1 billion in 2024, that’s an increase of 7% over 2023.
And landings were up 15% over 2023, driven mainly by increases in some pelagic species.
