Bumper Loligo squid season in Falklands with over 34.900 tons

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.

John Barton says this first Loligo season is more than the entire catch of 2011

Director of Fisheries John Barton described the season as, “bumper,” explaining that 34.900 tons had been caught by the mainly Falklands’ vessels involved; that is more than the entire catch of 2011 when a total of 34,600 tons was caught.

Fourteen Falklands flagged vessels make up the Loligo fleet plus one British and another from Spain.

Commenting on the success of the season Beauchene Fishing Company Ltd owner Cheryl Roberts confirmed, “it has been an absolutely brilliant season; one of our vessels transhipped three times and another twice.”

Other companies to enjoy the season were Argos Ltd, Fortuna Ltd., RBC Ltd, Southern Cross Ltd, Seaview Ltd and Seafish Ltd.

Director Barton added “that the Ilex season is still going along but with fairly modest catch levels.”

Although total Illex squid catch is up to 64.000 tonnes, which is reasonable, there are around 90 jiggers involved compared to the 16 in the Loligo Illex fishery, thus catch per vessel is relatively low.

Asked if it seemed likely the season would shut early Mr Barton said “we will keep an eye on it,” but emphasised there was no immediate danger. He said “there have been a lot of years when we haven’t caught anywhere near that.”

With regard to finfish, Fisheries Department scientists are currently involved in a conservation research project on board Castelo, said Mr. Barton. This involves, “looking at doing a bit more work on mesh size trials to see if there is scope to introduce different minimum mesh sizes.”