On Sunday, March 17th, Abate Molina scientific vessel set sail from Valparaíso’s port to characterize and evaluate horse mackerel, present between Arica and Parinacota Regions and Valparaíso Region , using hydroacoustic methods.
The head of the cruise is fishing engineer Víctor Catasti Barraza and as ship’s captain is José Echeverría, who, accompanied by an expert team of professionals, technicians and ship’s crew, will carry out studies related to horse mackerel for 40 days.
Specific objectives
To characterize horse mackerel population’s structure and its spatial distribution, considering attributes such as: abundance, biomass, sex, size and age, stages (juveniles and adults), among others.To characterize horse mackerel aggregations in the area, research period and environment, also specifying accompanying fauna and its relative importance in identification hauls.Characterization of the food supply of horse mackerel based on auxiliary information, such as environmental variables, echograms and plankton sampling in the study area.