An encouraging start of the 2024 Illex squid season, with good catches and sized specimens have been reported by both jiggers and trawlers, according to Argentine fishing interests operating since 12 January south of parallel 44.
Squid is back, and with good prospects for the catch season, according to reports from Argentina that also announced the launching of an aggressive vigilant and monitoring campaign between the Navy and Coast Guard to check on the estimated 350 Asian jiggers next to the 201 plus mile don't slip into the Argentine EEZ to “steal our sea resources”
Prefectura, a branch of the Uruguayan Navy, and the Uruguayan Prosecutor's Office are investigating a Chinese-flagged fishing vessel captured last Monday by the National Navy in Uruguay’s waters after a persecution that began on Sunday.
The bill creating the Protected Marine Area, Blue Hole, in the South Atlantic and currently under consideration in the Argentine congress has received strong criticism from the Argentine fishing sector, united under the umbrella of Intercamaras.
Foreign minister Jorge Faurie strongly denied in Congress on Wednesday that the Argentine government was ready to “handover” the disputed Malvinas Islands to the British, and likewise defended the current proximity policy of president Mauricio Macri administration towards the South Atlantic issue.
A Chinese flagged jigger sank after colliding with a Spanish flagged trawler on Friday morning to the northwest of the Falkland Islands. All thirty crew members have been rescued by other fishing vessels, and are heading for Montevideo, according to the latest reports from the Argentine Coast Guard. The collision involved the jigger V Zhong Yuan Yu 11 and the trawler Pesca Vaqueiro, which went undamaged.
The squid fishing season in the South Atlantic, operating with Argentine licenses, has started with good prospects and a moderate optimism of the sector. During the first week jiggers reported daily average catches that oscillated between 28 and 35 tons, according to Pescare, an Argentine fish industry publication. .
Fishing on the high seas (*) can present a serious problem for fisheries management, but the Falkland Islands Senior Fisheries Scientist Alexander (Sasha) Arkhipkin has been making a heavy contribution to international collaborations to attempt to deal with some of that impact.
The Falklands have added a new island. A representative of the United Nations Commission on the Law of the Sea, Lithuanian geologist Professor Loof Lirpa, has confirmed to Penguin News that a new island has emerged in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 150 miles north of Steeple Jason.
Big OceanData has been awarded a contract to provide the Government of the Falkland Islands with its vessel monitoring system (VMS) capability for another five years. For the first time the system will include AIS data, which will be integrated with existing Inmarsat tracking data from the fishing vessels.