Macquarie Island Fisheries, 1994-1995

This dataset contains the results from an investigation of the fishery off Macquarie Island. The data were obtained from the Austral Leader, an 85m long stern trawler, between December 1994 and February 1995. The aim of the fishing voyage was to determine whether sufficient catches could be made to enable dedicated voyages to the area to be profitable, and if time allowed to search for other fishable areas. The Austral Leader had been granted a licence by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) to fish in Commonwealth controlled waters within the Australian EEZ around Macquarie Island. A previous voyage in November-December 1994 had made a preliminary survey of the grounds surrounding the island. 59 tows were made in the vicinity of the island, and all but 10 were made in an area west of the island. No worthwhile catches were made in any other areas. The main species caught were the Patagonian Toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) and Rats Tails (Macrourus carinatus). Basic biological data were collected on the catches where possible including: standard and total length, sex, gonad maturity, and stomach contents.A Microsoft Access database containing data from this cruise, plus several others is available for download from the URL given below. The Entry ID's of the other metadata records also related to this data are:AADC-00038 AADC-00068AADC-00073AADC-00075 AADC-00080 AADC-00082 c88_dataThe fields in this dataset are: CruisesDateLocationLatitudeLongitudeSpeciesGearLengthWeightSexGonadEyeOtolithStomachLifestageFamily