Since Saturday, January 15, zero hours, Argentine jiggers have been allowed to operate between parallel 44 and parallel 48 South, following the lack and/or minimum catches at the original specified area of parallels 49 to 52 S.
Argentina's Coast Guard (Prefecura Naval) is guarding two fishing trawlers at Puerto Deseado in the Province of Santa Cruz as cases of covid-19 erupted among the crews, one sailor having already died of the disease.
This Friday begins the Argentine squid season to the south of parallel 44, and west of meridian 62. Last year's season was encouraging with daily catches averaging 25/30 tons per jigger, however towards the end of April tonnage dropped dramatically, and the season was cut short.
Falklands' Fortuna Group and their Taiwanese partners Go-Rising have teamed up with the UK naval architect firm Marine Design International to embark on an ambitious vessel survey and improvement program. Over a period the team surveyed 29 jigger fishing vessels in their home port of Kaohsiung, completing the survey last week.
While the Spanish fleet of fishing vessels, many of them partners of Falkland Islands companies have started leaving Vigo for the South Atlantic to begin the Loligo season on 24 February, Argentine licensed jiggers operating south of parallel 44 have been catching some 25 tons per day per vessel of Illex, according to the first reports from Pescare.com.ar.
A specially designed software to help detect, monitor and identify jiggers operating in international waters in the South Atlantic was presented at a meeting organized by Argentina's National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, INIDEP together with the country's Space Research national commission, partners in the development.
A significant decline in catches of squid (Illex argentinus) in Argentine waters at the end of the season, has forced the return to port of several Argentine flagged jiggers, according to a report this week from the country's Coast Guard station in Mar del Plata.
When in December 2012, the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center and the NASA Earth Observatory released a new map of the Earth as it appears at night they found something fishy off the coast of Argentina but now the mystery has been solved. About 300 to 500 kilometers offshore, a city of light appeared in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. There are no human settlements there, nor fires or gas wells. But there are an awful lot of fishing boats.
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.
Argentina’s National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development, Inidep, announced the development of software that can process, validate and/or automatically calibrate satellite night images of jiggers operating for squid at the 201 mile.