the current spawning cycle, the other will be spawned in the next spawning cycle. The reason for this is due to the large eggs (2.5-3.0 mm in diameter) and the cold water in which they in habit, it takes more than 1 year for oocytes to complete vitellogenesis. If they were to develop one group of oocytes at a time, they would only be able to spawn every two years. Fishing and conservation Greenland halibut are fished commercially by several countries including Russia, Norway, Iceland, Germany, Spain, Greenland and Canada and are caught using a variety of gears including bottom trawls, longline and gillnets. Reported landings have been around 50-140 thousand metric tonnes per year since 1960. Fishing is the most important industry in Greenland and Greenland halibut is the second-most important species (after northern prawn), meaning that any changes can have a significant effect on the country's overall economy, as well as the local economy as most inshore fisheries involve small-scale, small-boat fishers. Similarly, the fishery for Greenland halibut is very important to some First Nations and Inuit communities in Canada. The species is not threatened overall and it can be locally abundant, but it is near threatened. Until the 1970s, the species declined due to overfishing, but since the 1980s, an overall slight increase has been seen, although some local populations have further declined. The primary threat is overfishing. Secondary threats are related to their deep-water spawning grounds. Some are in areas with oil and gas extraction. Others spawning grounds are in deep near-shore regions where the ecosystem relies on nutrients from meltwater from glaciers, but these are gradually disappearing. In 2010, Greenpeace International added the Greenland halibut to its seafood red list because some fishing for the Greenland halibut is by bottom trawl, which can cause significant environmental damage, and some populations appear to be overfished. In coastal regions and some offshore regions, fishing for Greenland halibut mainly is done by deep-sea long line fishing (out of reach of seabirds and too cold for sea turtles, issues for this fishing type elsewhere in shallower and warmer waters) and stationary bottom gillnets, which does not cause the same damage as bottom trawling. In 2017, the Marine Stewardship Council certified that the fishery for Greenland halibut was sustainable. Because Canada and Greenland share the offshore populations in the Davis Strait–Baffin Bay region in between them, the two have shared