Preliminay results of the PELACUS0314 survey: estimates of sardine abundance and biomass in Galician and Cantabrian waters.

Abstract

A total of 9,023 tons of sardine (147 million fish) was estimated to be present in northwest and northern Spanish waters by the Spanish spring acoustic survey PELACUS0314, carried out from 9th March to 8th April 2014. That represents an important increase in relation to 2013 abundance and biomass, but still at the lower levels of the time series.

Fish were mainly found in Cantabrian area (mainly in VIIIc East-West subdivision) and inside Rias Baixas (South Galicia, ICES sub-areas IXa-N) and was almost absent from the rest of the surveyed area. Most fish in the entire surveyed area were assigned as belonging to the age 2 (38% of the abundance and 43% of the biomass) and age 3 (24.5% of the abundance and 25.5 % of the biomass) years classes. By subdivisions, the IXaN (South of Galicia) population was dominated by age 1 fish whilst the Cantabrian area was mainly composed by a population of age 2 and age 3 individuals.

The distribution of sardine eggs (obtained from the analysis of 358 CUFES stations) indicates a very coastal distribution, agreeing with that observed in previous years The percentage of positive stations was very similar in both surveys, but total number of sardine eggs detected in Spanish waters was 4214, which represents an important decrease from the 2013 value.