MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cautious optimism from Falklands Director of Fisheries as catches improves.

Falklands Director of Fisheries, Dr .John Barton, struck a cautiously optimistic note today, when interviewed on the Falkland Islands Radio programme, News Direct.

Following earlier reports from the high seas and Argentine waters of good catches of Ilex, the migratory squid, which is the principal target of the Falklands fishing effort, Dr. Barton reported that catch levels were improving in the Falklands EEZ (Economic Exclusion Zone).

The Ilex squid is currently the mainstay of the Falkland Islands economy and its scarcity for a number of seasons has caused alarm and triggered some cuts in government spending, as well as bringing hardship to some of the predominantly Asian owners of the jiggers, the specialised boats which target this species, during its annual migration South from its spawning grounds in the waters off Brazil.

Today Dr. Barton said that the majority of the jiggers which had been licensed by the Falkland Islands Government to fish for Ilex were now in the zone, and some were reporting what he described as "good catch levels."

Asked whether this indicated increased levels for the rest of the season, Dr. Barton replied that it was still a little early to tell as there were still a number of factors which could influence things. Ilex, he warned, does tend to move through the area in pulses, causing catches to go up very quickly, but then also fade away.

At the moment, however, he admitted that it seemed that there might be a significant amount of Ilex around in the South-West Atlantic this year. Certainly, he believed, that the fishermen, the fishing companies and everyone involved in the Ilex fishery were probably more cheerful now that some of the high catch rates, which have been missing for the last two years, have been seen again

John Fowler (Mercopress) Stanley