MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina/UK resume joint South Atlantic fisheries scientific assessment cruises

The research vessel will be the BIP Victor Angelescu, a state of the arte boat recently ordered and delivered from Spain

Next February first and after fourteen years Argentina and the United Kingdom will again be involved in a scientific assessment cruise of the Illex squid in the South Atlantic.

According to a release from INIDEP, Argentina's National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, the cruise will take place in the framework of the South Atlantic Fisheries Scientific Sub Committee, as established in the Joint Declaration of 28 November 1990.

The area to be surveyed to assess recruitment of the sub-Patagonic squid stock will take place between parallels 45 and 51 South at 100 to 400 bathymetric. The research vessel will be the BIP Victor Angelescu, a state of the arte boat recently ordered and delivered from Spain

The scientific cruise will have as chief scientist Beatriz Elena, a member of INIDEP's Cephalopods Fisheries Program and is estimated to last some 36 days. According to the release besides the fourteen Argentine scientists and experts, two UK/Falklands scientists will be included in the cruise.

The main purpose of the scientific cruise is to confirm the distribution and summer concentration areas of Illex argentinus, estimate the biomass and the number of recruits from the sub-Patagonic species, plus biologic samples of the squid (size, weight, sex, sexual development, stomach contents) to grasp the population structure of the researched species.

Besides the Illex squid, the scientific cruise will also include the distribution and relative abundance of different species of fin fish, biological samples and environmental parameters (temperature, salinity, chlorophyll) to elaborate an ocean diagnosis of the area researched, plus the extraction of benthos samples to determine their composition.

Thus the research will include other species such as Macruronus magellanicus, austral cod (Salilota australis), common hake (Merluccius hubbsi), toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), austral hake (Merluccius australis), nototenia (Patagonotothen ramsayi), southern bluewitting (Micromesistius australis) and pink cuskeel (Genypterus blacodes)