Capelin - Fisheries

Fisheries

Capelin is an important forage fish, and is essential as the key food of the Atlantic cod. The northeast Atlantic cod and capelin fisheries therefore are managed by a multispecies approach developed by the main resource owners Norway and Russia.

In some years with large quantities of herring in the Barents Sea, capelin seem to be heavily affected. Probably both food competition and herring feeding on capelin larvae lead to collapses in the capelin stock. However, in some years there has been good recruitment of capelin despite a high herring biomass, suggesting that herring are only one factor influencing capelin dynamics.

In the provinces of Quebec (particularly in the Gaspé peninsula) and Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, it is a regular summertime practice to go to the beach and scoop the capelin up in nets or whatever is available, as the capelin "roll in" in the millions each year at the end of June or in early July.

Commercially, capelin is used for fish meal and oil industry products, but is also appreciated as food. The flesh is agreeable in flavor, resembling herring. Capelin roe ("masago") is considered as a high value product. It is also commonly mixed with wasabi and sold as "wasabi caviar". Sometimes masago is used as a substitute for tobiko, flying fish roe, due to its similarity and taste.

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