The northern geographical distribution of the toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides, reaches the Exclusive Economic Zone of Uruguay. The species was firstly cited for the uruguayan waters by Devincenzi in 1924, and it is usually found by fishing trawlers between 900 m and 1200 m of depth, along the submarine continental ridges. Since 1997 some fishing vessels, like the F/V “Viking Sky”, started to capture the toothfish using conic bottom fishing-traps with sardine and squid frozen bait.
The F/V “Viking Sky” performed this fishing trip between the 2 of september to the 11 of october of 2001, with a Scientific Observer from DINARA on board. The ship looked for fishing zones both in uruguayan and international waters (FAO Statistical Area 41). Three different fishing zones were geographically determined:
Fishing zone South Latitude West Longitude
Northern Zone I 37.57 54.08
37.48 53.43
Southern Zone 42.17 57.57
42.51 58.33
Northern Zone I 37.42 53.40
37.09 53.42
The Southern Zone had the best fishing-yield: 5,7 Kg./trap/day; while the Northern Zones I and II had a very similar but inferior yield: 4,96 Kg./trap/day and 5,38 Kg./trap/day.
The average, modal and median length calculated for each sex were the following:
Males Females
Average length 86.18 cm 87.25 cm
Modal length 90.00 cm 85.00 cm
Median length 89.00 cm 86.00 cm
The majority of the sampled individuals of both sexes were determined in the grade 2 of gonadic maturity (84% of males and 89% of females), which means that most of the capture were juvenile. The selectivity of the fishing traps were determined in 59 cm of fish length, as the minimum size captured.
The deep-water lobster (Crustacea) Thymops birsteini; and grenadiers Macrourus spp. were captured as incidental fishing by the bottom traps.
Document Number:
WG-FSA-02/66
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Abstract