The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) on Thursday recommended Northern blue whiting quotas in 2014 be raised to a cap of 948,950 metric tons, a 47 percent increase over 2013 recommended harvest of 643,000 metric tons.
The quota advice is the highest since 2008, when fishing vessels landed 1.2 million metric tons.
Total landings in 2012 were just 384,000 metric tons -- a historic low.
"ICES considers the stock as having full reproductive capacity and that the harvested sustainably," the group wrote in its advice.
ICES
