MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands: Illex season started.

The Falklands illex fishing season started on Tuesday, with reduced expectations from the Government for its licence fee income after last year's disastrous catches.

Then, FIG had to return around £10 million of licence fees to fishing companies to compensate for virtually non-existent catches. This year, everyone concerned is holding their breath to see whether the squid have returned to Falkland's waters.

Director of Fisheries John Barton told MercoPress he hoped licence sales would bring in around £15 million this year, adding: "That's obviously a drop on previous estimates which could have been anywhere around £22-25m in good years."

As of Wednesday morning, he said vessel numbers were steadily climbing but some has clearly been put off by last year's catch: "About 45 vessels have picked up licences out of about 75 that we are expecting. It's down on the 90 we had last year and the highs of 125 that we have had in some years.

"I think that was expected and I think we would keep numbers down anyway this year because we are waiting to see whether the illex do return or not - in any case we would have gone carefully," he said.

The trend for Japanese vessels to drop out of the fishery is continuing, he added, with Taiwanese and Korean vessels now dominating: "The Japanese component was already diminishing. We may not have any Japanese vessels at all this year but that trend has been apparent for a number of years."

A joint Falklands-Argentine research cruise set out last Friday to assess squid stocks. Its 20-day programme started in Falklands waters and is then due to head into the Argentine fishing zone.

So does Mr Barton think there will be any illex for the jiggers to catch?

"It's probably just a bit too early to say. I think this time next week we will be beginning to get a better feeling for it as we'll have more results from the joint cruise and we'll have seen more in terms of commercial catches. A few vessels have started fishing in Falklands zones but have probably gone back on the high seas. In some normal years the Falklands fishery hasn't started until late February or early March. If it doesn't happen by that time things aren't looking great.

"We have seen so many different patterns of squid that it's difficult to predict what will happen. A bit earlier in the year there were reasonable catch rates on the high seas which didn't look so bad but a lot of those catch rates have diminished and that's probably not such a good sign" he added.

Sue Gyford (MP) Stanley