ScienceDirect (*) site has published a most interesting study on fishing trends, particularly on the Illex Argentines in the Southwest Atlantic, based on squid catches calculated from daily logbooks recorded by the Taiwanese squid-jigging vessels from 1998 to 2018 across the open sea east of Argentina and north of the exclusive economic zones of the Falkland Islands in the Southwest Atlantic, which was a quality-controlled compilation of regional fisheries data.
The Falkland Islands has decided to hold fee levels across all fishing licenses for 2017 as part of a long term policy focus and in view of certain circumstances emerging from the volatility of annual catches. The Executive Council (ExCo) agreed on the decision by a majority at its last meeting extensive to all license types, including Illex, the Islands main catch.
A report from Argentina’s INIDEP (fisheries research institute) presented to the Fisheries Federal Council last week indicates that during 2013 Illex squid catches totalled 434.561 tons of which 156.163 were landed by 66 Argentine jiggers. The report identified as Number 20, refers to the first 35 weeks of this year, (1 to 35) and includes Argentine waters and outside Argentina’s Exclusive Economic Zone, ZEEA.
Falkland Islands fishing companies had tons of reasons to be cheerful as the first Loligo squid season of 2012 drew to a close last weekend.
The Falkland Islands government has issued a high number of licenses for the 2012 Ilex season with almost a hundred jiggers operating which compares positively to previous years, according to the Director of Natural Resources John Barton.
The new Chair of the Falkland Islands Fishing Company Association condemned Argentina for their two month early opening of their illex (squid) fishing season, “with complete disregard for conservation of the stock”.
Despite a relatively buoyant 2011 Illex fishing season and “some optimism for the future,” one jigging company went out of business and others had problems finding the funds to pay licence fees said The Falkland Islands Director of Fisheries John Barton.
Some fishing companies are feeling “a bit hard done by” having been caught out by a change in the Falkland Islands Government Fisheries Department refunds policy implemented for 2011, said Director of Fisheries John Barton.
Encouraging expectations for the Illex argentinus squid season appear to be fading in Argentina. Following a start with good catches and high expectations, the average daily output of squid is now only around five tons in the area between parallels 44º and 46º South Atlantic.
Following on from the appearance of what appears to have been more jiggers than normal in Stanley harbour recently, Falkland Islands Director of Natural Resources John Barton says there are some 80 Illex jiggers licensed and fishing in Falkland Islands zones at present, and 88 jigging licences have been issued.