Chilean fishing boats are pulling up to five times more hake out of the water than the government officially records.
April 24, 2026
Original Paper
Mind the Gap: Estimating Underreporting and Unrecorded Artisanal Catches of the Overexploited Chilean Hake (Merluccius gayi gayi)
SSRN · 6636675
The Takeaway
Official data on fish populations is often used to set strict limits and ensure species can recover from overfishing. This analysis reveals that actual removals of Chilean hake are nearly 500 percent higher than the numbers used for management. This massive gap explains why fish stocks continue to plummet even though the government claims to be following sustainable rules. The reported data is essentially a fiction that ignores the vast majority of the actual catch. Accurate conservation is impossible when two thirds of the environmental impact is invisible to regulators.
From the abstract
The Chilean hake (Merluccius gayi gayi) fishery is a socio-economically vital component of the artisanal sector, yet the stock remains chronically depleted despite stringent management. A primary obstacle to recovery is the pervasive uncertainty in fishing mortality driven by Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) activity. This study quantifies artisanal removals between 2014 and 2024 by integrating scientific observer data (IFOP) with official landing declarations (Sernapesca) through a no