LIVE SCIENCE ! ON BOARD R/V DR FRIDTJOF NANSEN

By Emmanuel K. Mbaru Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute Once again marine fishes in the SWIO region were studied in their natural environment. Thanks to a regional collaborative fisheries research project SWIOFP which involves 9 countries in the SWIO region. Experts from Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles came together to foster unity among their diversity by joining their great minds to study as far as possible deep sea fish assemblages. During this survey studies were carried out in three forms; 1) through hydro-acoustics for the small pelagic, 2) pelagic trawls to ascertain acoustic results and 3) deep water demersal trawls to understand fish diversity as well as compare the diversity of fish with data from previous trawls. This is believed to be the last Nansen cruise under the SWIOFP framework and I am personally happy to be onboard. A total of 6 pelagic trawls and 7 demersal trawls were carried out during this 15 day cruise. The vessel left Port Louis in Mauritius on the 7th of December 2010 and sailed around the island in two days before heading to the Nazareth bank through the Mascarigne ridge and Rodriguez Island. A total of 13 CTD stations were profiled with their corresponding 13 multi-nets (zooplankton and phytoplankton) culminated the ecosystem ASCLME environmental sampling stations. Although catches were relatively low, fish species diversity was noted to generally high. I take this opportunity to thank the SWIOFP project for the efforts done towards capacity building within this SWIO region. Even before the project comes to the end already most countries have a reason to smile for the things achieved so far. Cheers

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