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We are working a 12 hour day from midday to midnight to maximise the opportunities to catch krill and other critters that rise from the depths as darkness descends.
It was a very successful first day of RMT's (Rectangular Mid-water Trawls) with seven completed in total. Over 3000 live krill were caught, and a range of other species which have been catalogued and frozen.
We are doing three different types of RMT;
Routine trawls which we do at the southern and northern ends of the boxes we are surveying. These trawls involve sending the RMT to 200m below the surface, remotely opening the net and then lifting it through the water column before closing and retrieving the net.
Targeted trawls which are done intermittently based on echo sounder data and target specific signals (blobs, streaks and smears!) on the echo sounder. For these trawls we try to be really accurate, sailing over the target and opening the net just before the target, and centred on the target vertically in the water column, then closing the net after we have passed.
The third type of trawl is a live krill trawl where we re trawl a target that was successful as a target trawl, but travelling slower and retrieving the net more gently so the krill are not damaged. These krill are then kept alive to return to the AAD krill aquarium (the longest running captive krill programme in the world).
At this stage the Science Coordinators' (who occasionally masquerades as the DVL) shift has caught one or two krill more than the VL's shift, but this was just beginners luck, things are going to change!
Cheers,
Andy and Simon
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.