The giant tuna – bluefin tuna – once was a common fish along the Norwegian coast. Every summer large schools of bluefin tuna entered the coast. From 1950 this became an important fishery for Norwegian purse seiners. The film shown below shows a Norwegian fishing vessel named “Speranza” on the fishing grounds in 1967.
In 1986 the last school of bluefin tuna was surrounded by a Norwegian purse seine. Today the bluefin tuna is endangered – suffering from the pressure of commercial interests all over the world. Norway has a quota, but the Norwegian Department of Fishery has stated that Norway will not fish bluefin tuna until the stock is managed in a responsible way and in accordance with the advice and recommendations given by scientists.
Norway is familiar with overfishing, but the nation has learned by mistakes done in the past. Hopefully the bluefin tuna some day again will find its way northwards to the feeding areas along the Norwegian coast.
During the fishery for herring in the northern part of Norway this year, a purse seiner got an unusual catch. As the crew was hauling the seine they saw a mink whale swimming along with the herring. It was a young whale estimated to weigh about 5-6 tonnes.
Neither the fishermen nor the whale thought it was appropriate for the whale to be in the seine. One of the fishermen, Thor-Stein Løvås, therefor found a long fishing gaff and started to tear a hole in the seine. The young mink whale seamed to know what was going on and swam towards the fisherman.
The wale waited patiently, without any sign of panic, while the fishermen made the hole bigger.
The mink whale found the hole in the net, and had no problems finding its way out of the purse seine. The last picture shows the whale swimming away from the fishing vessel.
Late summer the sprat is found in Norwegian fjords. When the quality of the sprat is good enough for the buyers, the fishery starts. This fishery has a long tradition in Norway, but nowadays only a few vessels are participating. The fresh photos shown on this page are given by Kåre Grønsnes who lives in Hardangerfjorden, a fjord in the southwestern part of Norway.
A small seiner is looking for sprat in Harangerfjorden in August 2008.
The oldest (but still beautiful) fishing vessel in Norway; “Fremad II”. Here seen with a smaller seiner during a brake in the fishery. “Fremad II” was built in Enland in 1888. If you scroll up to the header of Afishblog you will see the same vessel fishing bluefin tuna in 1968.
The sprat is located and the seine is set.
Here are some of the small seiners participating in the sprat fishery.
Live sprat is delivered from a small seiner to a fish carrier.
While waiting for the fish carrier, the crew is forcing the sprat to gather in one part of the seine. This year (2008) the fishery in Hardangerfjorden was very good, giving hopes for this fishery in the future.
