The catch of the day

Good morning... or good afternoon? In any case we hope you had a day at least as good as ours. Everything went very well. We took six hauls ranging from 300 to 1000 m and got the corresponding hydrographic profiles. We also did in advance the CTD at today's first sampling site. We had a warp length of 2300 m for the 1000 m haul and as I expected there was no problem at all. The repair the crew did on Monday evening was very good. Nevertheless they will not take any chances and last night they still did some extra work to ensure we can trawl within the whole depth range we need to sample. The picture shows Noelia, one of our veterans, and Rafa, one of the students from the University of Alicante, cutting open a Greenland halibut to sex it and record its maturity stage.

Now, get your pins ready because our positions were the following (for those learning Spanish, L stands for Lance (haul):

L6:	43º 21.79	51º 43.27
L7:	43º 19.04	51º 35.48
L8:	43º 18.96	51º 31.70
L9:	43º 05.43	51º 24.90
L10:	43º 04.92	51º 27.79
L11:	42º 59.75	51º 27.95

As we wrote, only data for hauls 6 to 9 had been recorded, but catches in the last two tows were nevertheless under 100 kg, which happens often in deep hauls, but the diversity was very high -there were many species. Some of them very interesting, as the hatchet fish we talked about in 2012, and the chimaeras (H. raleighana). It's a shame many of the deep water species are very delicate and their skin is damaged in the trawl. You may think that getting a few scratches is a minor problem in comparison with losing your life, and we cannot agree more. However, the data collected in this survey are being used to create marine reserves in which many vulnerable species are found, such as corals and sponges, along with a wide array of fish, which support amazing oasis on the sea bottom. They are so important for marine ecosystem functioning that we biologists call them (corals and sponges) “habitat forming species”.

But back to our fishing, total catch for the day was very similar to that on Monday, about 4400 kg, of which 4000 were redfish. Far, far, far below were thorny skate catches (69 kg) and Greenland halibut (26 kg), which is very scarce in this area. We also got 26 kg of longfin hake. And why not? Rare species also deserve mentioning. We have got one Argyropelecus aculeatus (the famous lovely hatchet fish), three Sternoptyx diaphana (transparent hatchet fish) and one Careproctus micropus (tadpole fish). Do not think they were big… catch of each of these species was four grams… but they were spotted nevertheless! We have been very lucky catching this Sternoptyx diaphana, mentioned in the Atlantic Fish of Canada guide, by Scott and Scott, published in the early 90s as a few specimens caught here and there in this region.

I wish we could show you all these wonders as we see them, but while the chance arrives, check them in the internet. Once you have seen how little we know of them you will understand how important the conservation of marine fauna is. Whales and seals are very well and nice, but all species got something that makes them fascinating and necessary, even if ecologist organizations have never ever thought of them. As the lovely hatchet fish.