The Marine Research Institute ship Bjarni Saemundsson is currently searching for capelin off Iceland’s eastern shore without much luck. The outlook for the current capelin season is murky and the institute is concerned the stock has reached a new low.
The ship has also been searching off northeast Iceland and near the coast of Greenland, but not with much more success. Only a small school of capelin has been discovered this winter, ruv.is reports.
Sveinn Sveinbjörnsson, ichthyologist at the Marine Research Institute, said the capelin outlook is particularly bad this fishing season.
In unrelated news, equipment for capelin processing from Raufarhöfn and Akureyri in northeast Iceland has been sold to Morocco, ruv.is reports.
The capelin processing plant used to be the largest employer in Raufarhöfn (pop. 230). In Akureyri (pop. 17,000) a capacitor factory will replace the old capelin plant.
