The PELACUS 0313 survey was undertook this year on board R/V Miguel Oliver, an
oceanographic research stern trawler vessel similar to R/V Thalassa. The survey was
characterised by a very bad weather conditions during the first two weeks which did not allow
working properly. Moreover, the weather conditions during the rest of survey were almost
similar. As a consequence, most of the coastal pelagic fish community remained very close to
the coast, thus not accessible to the pelagic gear samplers. (33% of the total acoustic energy –
NASC- was unable to be properly allocated into fish species).
Outside the coastal area (>90 m depth) main abundance fish species was mackerel with
380.000 tonnes, corresponding to 1.725 million fish. On the contrary, sardine distribution was
scarce, and occurred in small schools (probably as a consequence of the bad weather
condition), with only 3.343 tonnes corresponding to 54.0 million fish. Age group 2 was the
most abundant, which confirms the high abundance found last year at age group 1 of the 2011
cohort
