MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FIBS: Caught in the Net.

This year's loligo catch looks set to go down as one of the worst in Falkland's history.

Director of Fisheries John Barton told the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Station on Friday that catches had been average during the second season, but added: "The first season, which happened in March and April, was a pretty poor first season. Once the total catches are added up for the year I think it will turn out to be the second or maybe the third worst season on record."

Interviewer Lee Hazell asked Mr Barton whether there would be a repeat of the illex licence rebate, which saw the Falkland Islands Government forced to return around £10million pounds to fishing companies when catches failed earlier this year.

He replied: "I don't think we'll get into that scenario just yet on this one," adding that next year's loligo licence fees would be fixed at the same rate as this year's to encourage fishing companies to come back.

Mr Barton was also quizzed about the prospects for next year's illex catch in the Falklands, after recent predictions from the Argentine fisheries agency, INIDEP, that it would be another poor year.

He said water temperatures were so far "pretty normal for this time of year," but warned that illex were notoriously hard to predict and so any early optimism could be misplaced.

He added: "The concern has to be that even if the conditions next year are perfectly good for squid, if there weren't that many squid left to spawn - which seems to be the case in 2004 - even though the temperature may be terrific for them, there may just not be that many squid out there to take advantage of it."

Mr Barton will know by the end of this month how many companies have expressed an initial interest in licences for the coming illex season. He confirmed that there were some, however, that wouldn't be on the list, having collapsed under the financial strain of last year's failed catch: "We are certainly aware of one or two companies that have had problems as a result of 2004. I think some of them were probably having problems before that but in many cases it finished their prospects of fishing," he said.