Falklands: Outwitting canny fur seals feasting on abundant Loligo
Falkland Islands Senior Fisheries Scientist Dr Alexander Arkhipkin explains the habits of fur seals and the efforts undertaken to reduce by-catch in the Loligo fishery. Stocks of Falkland calamari (Loligo) are very prolific this year. During the first season, the fleet harvested around 40,000 tons, and two weeks of the second season brought onboard another 10,000 tons of squid. Aggregations of calamari are so dense that fishing vessels worked up to their freezing capacities having an average of 60-65 tons of squid per vessel per day. Very unusually this year, dense squid aggregations also attracted their natural predators, fur seals and sea lions into the fishing area. As the vessels concentrate squid in front of the trawl, seals have their feeding frenzy in the close vicinity of the net, and within the net too. click here to read the story 11:44
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