‘They might be fishing the last school’: Russia rouses international anger with redfish overfishing

The population is declining rapidly but Russia has refused to observe restrictions - aided by countries offering ports or catch processing

The Irminger Sea, near Greenland and Iceland, is home to the beaked redfish - a large-eyed, orange creature that typically grows up to half a metre long and lives for about 60 years. It has come to epitomise just why Russia ranks so poorly on the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Index - second-worst out of 152 countries in 2021.

Until recently, the beaked redfish was hunted widely in the Irminger Sea. Every three years, scientists from Iceland, Germany and Russia surveyed the state of the two stocks in the Irminger Sea, and in 2020, they concluded the redfish population was declining rapidly.