Giant squid landing.

Giant squid landings fall almost 90pc

CHILE
Saturday, June 08, 2019, 01:10 (GMT + 9)

A drop of 87.6 percent experienced the landings of  giant squid during the first five months of the year, according to data from the National Fisheries Service (Sernapesca). This information  is known only two months before the law that regulates the exploitation of this resource, limiting it only to techniques used by the artisanal sector, enters into force, next August.

According to these figures, the total landings of giant squid decreased 87.6 percent in the period January-May of this year compared to the same period of 2018, going from 111,380 tons to 13,704 tons.

Giant squid | Dosidicus gigas | Jibia

The data show that squid landings made by the industrial sector fell by 50 percent in the analyzed period, from 25,536 tons to 12,724 tons. Meanwhile, artisanal catche registered a 99.9 percent decrease, from 85,844 tons to 980 tons.

Members of the industrial sector explain that the reduction in landings is related to the scarcity of the resource and the fact that the giant squid is far from the coast, so that artisanal fishermen, who hold 80 percent of the quota, do not manage to reach the area where they could capture it. In this context, they point out, it is negatively combined with what the giant squid law  imposes.

"If all the actors and the scientific world had been listened, we would not be in the absurdity that in August Chile will have a very valuable fishing resource in the water and that nobody will be able to fish it: the artisanal fishermen because the giant squid has moved away from the coast due to oceanographic reasons; and  the industrial fishermen because their vessels will stop operating as a result of bad public policy," complained ASIPES President Macarena Cepeda.

"The fishing world is today the victim of political pressures and electoral commitments that will not only cause deep damage to this sector, but will inevitably be transmitted to other productive activities that work on the basis of allocations or permits granted by the State," she said.

Author: Constanza Pérez-Cueto /La Tercera  (Read the whole story here)


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