LITHUANIA
Work at the Zeimena hatchery contributes to the healthy status of inland ďŹ sh stocks
Salmon and sea trout delisted from Lithuania’s red book Lithuania’s inland waters are home to a number of species of which several are of commercial importance. The most important inland ďŹ shery takes place on the Curonian Lagoon, a water body separated from the Baltic Sea by the Curonian Spit, but several lakes and rivers also have an inland ďŹ shery. The inland waters in Lithuania have an area of some 2,600 sq. km and include lakes, rivers, and most importantly the Curonian Lagoon. The lagoon has a total area of about 1,600 sq. km and is divided into a Lithuanian part in the north and Russian part in the south. The Lithuanian area is about a quarter of the total. These waters are home to a wide variety of species including perch, roach, pike-perch, bream, vimba, smelt, pike, silver bream, crucian carp, burbot, twaite shad, sabrefish, stickleback, European eel, ruffe, asp, and common whitefish, however the main commercial species are pike-perch and bream. About three quarters of the commercial freshwater catch come from the lagoon and amounted to just over 1,000 tonnes in 2014. The other main sites for commercial freshwater fishing are the Kaunas reservoir and the lower Nemunas river.
Several species of fish bred for restocking Freshwater angling is a popular pastime in Lithuania with an estimated one in six people practicing it. Accurate figures are hard to come by as data on the number of anglers and their catches is not recorded. In addition to the local angling fraternity, Lithuania is also a destination for tourists 42
Eurofish Magazine 4 / 2015
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from other parts of Europe interested in pleasure fishing. Freshwater fish stocks in Lithuania are thus important from an environmental and a commercial point of view and the authorities in the form of the Fisheries Service implement a programme to ensure that the stocks are healthy and will remain so also in the future. Breeding and restocking activities are an important part of this programme and the service has a network of six centres that breed different species of fish as well as crayfish. In 2014 juvenile pike (3.1m), pike-perch (1.3m), and burbot (1.5m) accounted for two thirds of the total production. Juveniles of other species that were bred included whitefish, rainbow trout, salmon, European eel, and European catfish. At the Zeimena hatchery the Fisheries Service maintains a breeding programme for Atlantic salmon and sea trout. About 50 individuals of each species are caught in the wild each year. These will form the broodstock. The sea trout are usually 5-6 kg when they are caught, while the salmon have been known to be up to 20 kg, though around 10 kg is more common. The fish are stripped of the eggs and the milt and then released. The fertilized eggs are stored in incubators for around three months. Once the eggs hatch the alevins
The manager (left) of the Zeimena hatchery, where the Fisheries Service has a breeding programme for salmon and sea trout. Ieva Zundiene, Chief Specialist in the Fisheries Policy Division.
are grown to 3 g and in spring the fry, as they are now called, are released into rivers. Approximately, 500,000 eggs are hatched, half each of salmon and sea trout, and about 10 of this number is grown until the following spring, when they reach 50-80 g before they are released. This distribution is an experiment to find out whether survival rates can be improved further.
Breeding programmes benefit the region Twenty years ago neither salmon nor sea trout could be found in Lithuanian rivers. A combination of overfishing, damage to
their habitats, and pollution were among the factors that decimated the stocks. The breeding programme helps to repopulate the rivers and the Baltic Sea with these species. Both salmon and sea trout are anadromous, that is they breed in freshwater, where they live for one to five years and then travel down to the sea for a long period before returning to the river to breed. In the hatchery the mortality rate among the alevins is 20 while in nature it is 98. The Ministry of Environment maintains a red book containing the names of species that are endangered in Lithuania and sea trout was removed from this list in 2013, while salmon www.eurofishmagazine.com