Wild Catch

Wild catch is fish and shellfish taken from natural stocks by capture fisheries, as opposed to farmed output from aquaculture. Global wild capture production has held near 90 to 92 million tonnes a year since the late 1980s while aquaculture kept growing, so farmed production overtook wild catch for human food in the late 2010s. Wild catch comes from marine and inland waters across all gear types and is constrained by stock productivity, which is why it is managed against maximum sustainable yield with total allowable catch, effort limits, and area closures. About 35% of assessed marine stocks were fished beyond biologically sustainable levels in the latest FAO assessment.