MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Steady start for second Falklands Loligo squid season

Falkland Islands Government Director of Fisheries , John Barton, told Mercopress yesterday that the 2006 second loligo squid season began on Saturday, with all sixteen expected ships taking up their licences and beginning to fish.

Yesterday, Monday, some 500 tonnes of fish were caught, which the Director described as a reasonable beginning, comparing well with the same season in 2005.

Mr. Barton explained that the waters around the Falkland Islands appear to contain two populations of the same kind of squid, loligo gahi, which breed at an interval of around six months apart, hence the need for two distinct catching seasons.

The first season each year begins towards the end of February and generally goes on till mid-April. The eggs of the first batch are laid during May and those of the second around October, he explained.

The second season this year was preceded by a scientific cruise, conducted by the Fisheries Department using the commercial fishing vessel, New Polar, but said Mr. Barton, the data obtained was still being analysed and it was still too early to make firm predictions.

John Fowler (Mercopress) Stanley