Demersal Fish Resources Division

In the continental shelfs and continental shelf slope areas around Japan, there are abundant resources of important benthic marine products, including the Alaska pollock, flatfishes, snow crab, and shrimps, which are caught through various methods of fisheries activities, mainly bottom trawling. The Demersal Fish Resources Division collects and analyzes data of the ecosystems and fishing of those demersal fish to assess the current state of the resources. The division examines the stock dynamics of those resources as well as measures of their sustainable use. Furthermore, the knowledge and information acquired is used in fisheries negotiations with the neighboring countries that mutually use adjacent sea areas with Japan, such as Russia, China, and South Korea.