TURKEY
Japan and Russia are important markets for Black Sea salmon
An increasingly popular salmonid Trabzon is a metropolitan city located on the eastern Black Sea coast not far from the Georgian border. The Black Sea is famous for its catches of anchovy which is ďŹ shed mainly by Turkey, Georgia and Ukraine. The anchovies have a high content of omega-3 fatty acids and are used for human consumption and for ďŹ shmeal and ďŹ sh oil.
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lker Yildirim has a fish restaurant in Trabzon specialising in fresh fish from the Black Sea. The species served include anchovies, red mullet, horse mackerel, and Black Sea salmon and the fish is put on display at the entrance so the customers can assess its freshness for themselves, before choosing what they want to eat. Mr Yildirim wears several hats. Apart from the fish restaurant he is also involved in fishing, fish processing, and breeding Black Sea salmon (Salmo trutta labrax) in cages in the Black Sea. The latter is a relatively new activity in Turkey, but one that has seen rapid growth over the last decade or so driven by demand for this fish, which can be grown to 3-5 kg, in Russia and Japan. To grow the fish Mr Yildirim collaborates
with companies that have hatcheries from which he buys the fingerlings. But he also imports eggs which are hatched and grown to fingerling size in his hatchery.
Fish are transferred from dam lakes to the Black Sea for rapid growth After reaching a size of 5 g or so in the hatchery the fish are transferred to cages in a dam lake where they are on-grown for 12-13 months. The dam lake cages are located over 100 km away at a site in the mountains. During this period the fish reach 300 g to 1 kg. From the dam lake cages the fish are moved to cages in the Black Sea in the autumn where they remain until the water in the sea starts warming up in spring letting low oxygen levels under lower needs of trout. However,
Ilker Yildrim, director in Yomra, a company producing Black Sea salmon and other farmed fish species. 36
One of the vessels that are used both for aquaculture operations and, after the farming season, in fishing activities as carrier vessels.
although they only spend 8-9 months in the Black Sea cages, growth is rapid: a 300 g fish may reach 2.5 kg, while a 500 g specimen may reach 3-3.2 kg. Bigger fish such as those of 1 kg may even grow to 4-5 kg during their stay in the sea cages. Altogether, the fish take about 22 months to reach market size from the egg stage. The reason behind moving fish between the dam lakes and the sea is to resolve a trade-off – in the sea the fish grow rapidly but the water temperature in summer gets too high, threatening their wellbeing and possibly even their survival. On the other hand, the water in dam lakes, thanks to their elevation, maintains a comfortable temperature for the fish, but growth is not as rapid. The company, Yomra Su Urunleri, has tried to find ways around having to transfer the fish from one site
to another as moving the fish is a laborious and demanding task but is still the most feasible alternative. Another option, sinking the cages in the Black Sea to a depth where the water is cooler was shelved because it is technically highly demanding and expensive as a result. Moving the cages into deeper water was also not realistic as the water rapidly becomes very deep making it difficult to fix the cages securely.
Leaving cages empty benefits the environment Regulations specify that the cages should be 0.7 nautical miles (1.3 km) from the coast and at least a kilometre from the next farm. Yomra Su Urunleri has two vessels to harvest, to feed the fish and maintain the cages. There are 20 cages, half with a diameter of
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