Investigations on demersal fish in the Svalbard area autumn 2000 and 2001, with special attention on juvenile Greenlandhalibut

Abstract

In 1996, Institute of Marine Research in Bergen initiated a program to investigate to what degree Greenland halibut's nursery grounds extended to the north and east of Spitsbergen. Norwegian vessels executed this survey until 1999 with coverage with some stations of the Russian EEZ in 1998 and 1999. At the annual meeting between Russian and Norwegian scientists it was decided to make this survey a joint survey, and the first year with a joint effort of both a Russian and a Norwegian vessel was year 2000. The survey was conducted as a traditional bottom trawl survey with main focus on Greenland halibut, but also analyses were carried out on cod, redfish and long rough dab. The main results in 2000 and 2001 were: signs of improved recruitment of Greenland halibut, the year-classes 1999 and 2000 were the strongest in the time series, mean length and mean weight were in accordance with previous years, low abundance of cod in the survey area with no length groups which substantially dominate the estimates, very low abundance of redfish in the survey area, both S. mentella and S. marinus, long rough dab most abundant in the area with the widest distribution of the surveyed species, the long rough dab estimates strongly dominated by fish smaller than 25 cm.