IFOP Cabo de Hornos vessel conducts a research cruise on southern tail and three-finned hake
August 6th, 2020
Between August 2nd and 31rd a team of professionals and technicians from Fishing Develpment Institute (IFOP) led by Fishing Engineer, Javier Legua, boarded the Chilean Navy scientific ship AGS-61 “Cabo de Hornos”, to assess southern, tail and three-fin hake spawning stock in outer waters between Los Lagos and Aysén regions in order to generate biological data, such as size, age, sexual maturity, feeding and accompanying fauna, in addition to the resources’s status
Legua explained that one of the procedures that will be used to evaluate these resources is the hydroacoustic method “acoustics, it is a technique that applies sound and its properties in water masses study.
To get information, it uses a device called an echo sounder, which works with a transmitter and receiver for sound signals. This device emits acoustic waves that travel in water, colliding with all the organisms and particles that it finds in its path; each one of these obstacles that sound waves encounter emit an echo that when received and with a data collection program is translated into images called echograms that represent the underwater ecosystem ”
IFOP staff is made up of 15 people, 6 Scientific Observers, 3 acoustic researchers, 1 fishing captain and 5 crew plus Chilean Navy.