Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries

The Institute for Baltic Sea Fisheries (OSF) is the successor of the Institute of Marine Research of the GDR (1953-1991). The Institute for Baltic Sea Fisheries was founded 1991 as a sister institute of the Institute for Sea Fisheries in Hamburg. The OSF is in charge of the federal tasks of sea research in the Baltic Sea for the Ministry of Nutrition, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. In short the prime tasks are conducting research to establish the scientific basis for advising in political decision in fishery political decisions of the Baltic Sea. In addition data are collected on research surveys to contribute to the international stock assessments.

Marine research and research on the stock (stock assessment) requires long time series to be able to assess the status of the stock in terms of biomass but as much for the forecast of the stock development. Sophisticated mathematical model are employed to derive at the estimates of the stock status including its variance (modelling). The results are the basis for the calculation of the total allowable catches which are the basis for the setting of national quota which again are the legal basis for fishing activities of the fleets (scientific advice).

Fishery will only have a future if the principle of sustainability and precautionary exploitation is realised. The EU Commission has adopted the principle of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) as the basis of management and decision-making. For the OSF this implies the continuous task of collecting data on age and growth of mainly herring, sprat, cod and flounder and conducts research on the recruitment of these stocks.

In practice the institute collects data on board of commercial fishing vessels and from landings (landings statistics) and on internationally coordinated fishery surveys. During the latter standardized catches are taken, based on a statistical survey design. The collected data are processed in the institute and forwarded to the international data banks of the International Council of the Exploration of the Sea.

Another task is the development of the gear and survey technology in the institute. Aim of the research is the improvement of the gear selectivity of nets and the development of gear which reduces the by-catches on unwanted species and of fish below the legal landing size. In addition in this section the survey technology is further developed to improve the observation devices which are need to investigate the performance of the nets during operation in the sea.
The working group fishery/environment deals with all aspects of environmental impacts of industrial use of the sea. This comprises a great number of questions of effects on fish stocks of for instance bridge construction, erection of wind farms or the impact of warm water discharge in to the Baltic. Moreover, this section also deals with the effects of fishery itself on the environment in the context of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).
Another task of the institute is the improvement of the information for vendors and consumers on the fish and fishery products which are traded to enable them to make educated decisions during purchase of fish and fishery products. The basis of this system is an internet portal (http://www.portal-fischerei.de). Indirectly this enables to have influence on the fishery management for an improvement of the sustainable exploitation of the fish stocks.