R/V Dr. Fridtjof Nansen Fish Resource Surveys off West Africa: Morocco to Sierra Leone. Part I - Final Report. August - December 1986













Table of Contents


NORAD - FAO/UNDP GL082/001

IMR, Bergen

Note.
This report has been prepared by T. Strømme and G. Sætersdal, Institute of Marine Research, Bergen with the assistence of O. Alvheim and H. Ullebust. Chapter 2 with the account of the intercalibration experiments is based on a report prepared by J.J. Levenez, P. Oliver and I. Svellingen.

This electronic document has been scanned using optical character recognition (OCR) software and careful manual recorrection. Even if the quality of digitalisation is high, the FAO declines all responsibility for any discrepancies that may exist between the present document and its original printed version.


Table of Contents


PREFACE

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Objectives
1.2 Plan and conduct of the surveys.
1.3 Methods of investigation

CHAPTER 2 RESULTS OF THE INTERCALIBRATION EXPERIMENTS.

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Intership calibration using the sea bottom as common target
2.3 Intercalibration on fish layers
2.4 System comparisons - mini surveys
2.5 Concluding remarks

CHAPTER 3. RESULTS OF THE SURVEYS; FINDINGS REGARDING THE COMPOSITION, DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF THE RESOURCES.

3.1 Introduction.
3.2 Sierra Leone, Guinea and Guinea Bissau.

3.3.1 Small pelagic fish.
3.3.2 Demersal fish.

3.3 Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania.

3.3.1 Small pelagic fish.
3.3.2 Demersal fish off the Gambia.

3.4 Morocco

3.4.1 Pelagic fish Agadir to Cape Juby.
3.4.2 Results from repeated coverages.
3.4.3 Fish distribution and abundance Cape Juby - Cape Bojador.

CHAPTER 4. OVERVIEW OF DISTRIBUTIONS AND ABUNDANCE OF STOCKS OF SMALL PELAGIC FISH.

4.1 The sardinella stocks.
4.2 Horse - and jack mackerels, scombrids etc.
4.3 The stock of trigger fish
4.4 Morroccan sardine

CHAPTER 5. BRIEF SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

ANNEX I. Course tracks and position of fishing stations.

ANNEX II. Description of instruments and fishing gear.

ANNEX III. Tables intercalibration experiments.

ANNEX IV Abbreviated list of fishing stations.

ANNEX V. List of species caught.

ANNEX VI. Histograms of pooled length frequency distributions by species, areas and surveys.