Closed areas · By nation
12 closures in Welsh waters, watched from space. Together they cover 11.6 thousand km².
Welsh sea fisheries are devolved to the Welsh Government, which makes the closures in Welsh inshore and offshore waters under its own orders and byelaws.
Wales has a high proportion of designated marine protected area relative to its coast, and the closures here include scallop-dredging restrictions and shellfish-bed protections as well as habitat closures. As everywhere else, most prohibit a kind of gear rather than fishing itself.
Scallop dredging is the activity Welsh closures name most often, and several of them are seasonal as well as spatial — prohibited for part of the year and permitted for the rest. That matters to every case here: a vessel dredging inside one of these areas may be entirely within the rules in November and outside them in June, so the date decides as much as the position does, and a closure boundary on a map is only half the rule.
A case is a reason to look, not a verdict — most are examined and resolved. Every case is judged on three independent factors and nothing reads CAUGHT until all three are strong and a person has reviewed it. How a case is made.
By rule: No-take zones Bottom-towed gear Trawling Dredging All seabed fishing
By nation: Scotland England Northern Ireland Isle of Man Jersey
The full A–Z of all closures · Download the closure dataset · See live cases on the map