Earlier this week Mercopress announced that a delegation from the Falkland Islands will be joining the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Argentina next week to discuss fisheries data exchange. This announcement comes shortly after a successful visit to the Brussels Seafood Show, where the important access of continued market access post-Brexit was discussed with partners by Falkland Islands fishing companies.
Twenty thousand tons of Loligo squid have been caught during the first month of the fishery, so it is “doing well,” the Falkland Islands Senior Fisheries Scientist Sasha Arkhipkin confirmed to Penguin News during the last week of March.
Sasha Arkhipkin, Senior Fisheries Scientist talks about mass strandings of pilot whales.
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 Falkland Islands second Loligo squid season has taken with very good catches, but good catches also means abundance of the cephalopodus, and... of those sea mammals that feed on them. Because of this a temporary exclusion zone around Beauchene Island was put in place on Thursday making this productive area for Loligo squid out of bounds to fishing vessels.
Around 360 Falklands residents visited the floating dock FIPASS on Saturday 25th February as part of Fish Day – celebrating 30 years of the Falkland Islands Fishery. The Falkland Islands Fishing Association (FIFCA) Executive Secretary Jackie Cotter told Penguin News the day went very well and its aim, as well as celebrating the anniversary, was to give a general overview both of the fishery and the Falklands Government Fisheries Department.
Three decades ago, on 29 October 1986 a Proclamation declaring the Interim Falklands Conservation and Management Zone was signed by then Governor Jewkes, which helped to transform the Islands economy. The anniversary has been marked by several events, and this week was the turn for a scientific approach on how and why the waters around the Falklands are so rich in marine life.
Falkland Islands authorities have confirmed that Illex squid capture has been particularly low this fishing season, a situation that could lead the Islands government to reimburse part of the license fees paid to catch cephalopods.
Early indications from scientific surveys are showing “no big concentrations of Illex,” in the Falkland Islands waters or on the high seas, “which is worrying,” said Falkland Islands Government Senior Fisheries Scientist Sasha Arkhipkin as reported by the Penguin News.
The Argentine jigging fleet captured nearly 150,000 tonnes of squid (Illex argentinus) in South Atlantic waters during the season that took place between 24 January and 31 August this year, according to a technical report issued by the National Institute for Fishing Research and Development (INIDEP).