THE value of the Scottish fishing fleet’s catch has fallen, with £563 million worth of fish and shellfish landed in 2019.
New figures show Scotland-registered vessels netted 386,000 tonnes, a drop of almost 60,000 on 2018.
The value of the the catch fell by £26 million on 2018, the Scottish Government figures reveal.
Just over a quarter of the catch (26%) was mackerel, making this the most valuable stock with a value of £146 million.
But the amount of mackerel caught was 21% lower than the previous year, with 121,000 tonnes caught compared to 153,000 the previous year - with the species worth £163 million in 2018.
The amount of cod caught was down by more than a fifth (21%), with 15,000 tonnes netted in 2019 - the value of the catch fell by 9% to £40 million.
There were also falls in the amount of haddock and monkfish caught by fishermen, with these down 6% and 16% respectively.
Boats netted 27,000 tonnes of haddock worth £41 million and 11,000 tonnes of monkfish worth £34 million.
But more shellfish were caught, with the catch rising 16% to 62,000 tonnes, with a value of £193 million, up by 8% on 2018.
The fleet had 2,096 registered active vessels last year, up by seven from 2018, with 4,886 people working on them, a rise of 1%.
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