Fishing economy remains buoyant during Covid

Shetland UHI has released its Shetland Fisheries Statistics 2020 and although fish landings were up but value down there was an overall positive outcome during the pandemic.

Just over 54,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish, worth some £72 million, were landed in Shetland in 2020. That was an increase in weight from 2019 but a fall in value.

Shetland fishing boats in total landed about 94,000 tonnes of fish during the year, at all locations, with a value of £105 million.

The report shows that although the weight of pelagic fish, such as mackerel, landed in Shetland increased by more than one-third in 2020 that was partly offset by a substantial fall in landings of whitefish such as cod, saithe and hake.

Overall, the report concludes that there does not appear to have been a large impact on fish landings in Shetland from the Covid-19 pandemic. The biggest probable impact was on the prices of shellfish and, to a lesser extent, of some whitefish species.

A full report will appear in this week’s Shetland Times, out Friday.