Fantastic plan for Atlantic salmon

Many times on this blog I have decried overfishing, particularly for bluefin tuna, but it's a problem for a lot of commercial fisheries.

Well, Greenland is doing something remarkable - they're essentially stopping all commercial fishing for Atlantic salmon for 12 years, to let the stock rebuild.  Hopefully this will lead to much improved salmon runs in North America.

I applaud this plan, and wish that a lot of other nations, and a lot of other commercial fishing operations, would follow Greenland's lead.

Greenland to halt commercial salmon fishing for 12 years

I have one question about this article, though.  The article says:

"Greenland fishermen will still be able to catch up to 20 metric tonnes each year for personal and family consumption."

OK, so a metric tonne is 1,000 kg, or about 2,205 pounds.  So the annual 'limit' here is about 44,000 pounds of salmon.

A family of Greenlanders eats 44,000 pounds of salmon a year??  Either that, or the extended family is pretty darned big.

They do eat a lot of fish;  this article about fishing and aquaculture of Greenland says per capita fish consumption is 86.9 kg.  That's not all salmon, hopefully.  But still, if it was, a family of four would be eating 764 pounds of fish per year.  That means, if they fish their quota, they'd have 43,236 pounds left over.

Doesn't that seem like a lot to you? 

I wish I could clarify why the family exemption is so high.

(OK, I clarified it. That's the total annual catch allowed for all the fisherpersons in Greenland. Much more sensible.)