Norway Lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) - Effort of vessels landing >75% Nephrops during 2007-2012 (Count of VMS positions)

The most valuable shellfish species (and sometimes the most valuable commercial species overall to Scotland) is the Norway lobster, Nephrops. This species is distributed in all areas where soft mud and sandy mud occurs. These areas dominate most of the firths of Scotland and extensive areas of the west coast. In more recent years a major fishery has developed at the offshore Fladen Ground in the North Sea and this is now the biggest Nephrops fishery in the world. Nephrops fisheries are prosecuted by a large fleet of generally smaller vessels using otter trawls and on the west coast there is an extensive creel fishery.

The information shown on this data layer indicates areas where effort (measured in number of Vessel monitoring system VMS pings per grid cell) to catch Nephrops takes place. Data is averaged for the period 2007-2012.