Iceland’s capelin season is hanging in the balance as the Marine and Freshwater Institute’s advice for a zero-quota fishery this winter still holds.
With an acoustic survey still in progress off the west of Iceland, and a recently completed survey off the north and east having located little capelin, the Institute has relied on pelagic vessels traversing from Faroese waters where they have been fishing for blue whiting to follow particular courses. This produced results when Svanur reported capelin marks in the southern part of the Red Square grounds a few days ago.
Then skippers of pelagic vessels Hákon and Hoffell both reported sighting capelin marks in the Rose Garden area to the south-east of Iceland while they were steaming home from Faroese waters to land blue whiting.
‘We were asked to take samples, but that wasn’t due to the weather,’ said Hákon’s skipper Jón Thór Björnsson, commenting that Hoffell identified marks at the same time, and there were twelve nauticall miles between the two vessels.
‘Now we have capelin in mind and are hoping for a positive result from the survey when this is checked,’ he added.
Although there is a suspicion that the marks could have been herring rather than capelin, the Marine and Freshwater Institute has been quick to mobilise research vessel Bjarni Sæmundsson, which has been carrying oceanographic work in that area, to obtain samples to be sure that this is capelin.
Pelagic vessel Polar Ammassak, which has been participating in a capelin survey off the north-west, is also heading for the area off the south-east and survey work is expected to begin immediately and to last for several days.
