Different pelagic vessel operators and the Marine Research Institute hold meeting last week and were agreed to send more research vessel in the capelin search. In the meeting it was decided that the next step in the capelin search would be for R/V Árni Fridriksson to continue searching as soon as possible on eastern grounds while R/V Bjarni Sæmundsson should be sent to western waters at the end of January to start searching there.
Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, head of HB Grandi’s pelagic division, explained that the idea is that Árni Fridriksson should be deployed south of the capelin migration path and to take measurements northwards along the east coast. He added that from there westwards along the north coast of Iceland, which is where capelin can be expected to be located.
At the meeting it was notified that the amount of capelin measured by the four vessels working together recently came to 214,000 tonnes – when Árni Fridriksson alone identified 170,000 tonnes. This means that a large volume of capelin that had been identified when Árni Fridriksson was active in the same areas a year ago and located between 70,000 and 80,000 tonnes of capelin.
Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson also pointed out that effort would be put into careful monitoring of the Icelandic summer spawning herring over its spawning period.
