Valmis aastaraamatu "Eesti kalamajandus 2024" ingliskeelne tõlge "Estonian Fishery 2024".
Dear Reader,
If you were to ask the authors of this collection what the most important fisheries event was for them in 2024, the half-joking response might be the relaunch of the Fisheries Information Centre project after a gap year.
Unfortunately, there is not much good news on fisheries as a whole. In 2024, we were not able to rejoice that our fish farming had come out of its long slump, that production had finally started to grow, or that marine fish farming had made the expected leap.
In Pärnu Bay, the most profitable area of our coastal fishery, perch and pikeperch stocks were still at a low. The current state of the stocks of these high-export-value fish species cannot be compared with past times, which is a shame. Fortunately, this was compensated for by abundant catches of herring and smelt. Of course, one of the most lucrative catches for our fishers in almost the entire coastal waters in the last few years has been an alien species that until recently was much maligned: the round goby. The name of the game now is: if you can’t kick it out, try to eat it.
As in the past, the rapid increase in the cormorant population could not be controlled during the period described in the yearbook. If we have not been able to curb population growth, what is there to say about limiting the existing population. It seems that the removal of the Sindi dam on Pärnu River was necessary not to improve the state of fish stocks, but to feed the growing cormorant population.
Unfortunately, Russia continued its full-scale imperialist war of conquest in Ukraine in 2024. Heroic Ukraine continued to be the most important export country for our fish catchers and processors. Let us also celebrate the fact that Estonian fish contributes to European freedom.
Lest the foreword give the impression that 2024 is all doom and gloom, the truth is that there are many responsible people working in the fisheries sector and in the agencies and research institutions that support it, and their work must one day bear fruit. Estonian fisheries must survive and thrive.
Eat fish!
Toomas Armulik
Head of Fisheries Information Centre
Yearbook 'Estonian Fishery 2024' can be ordered from Fisheries Information Centre (
