THE RESEARCH PROJECT TO DIGITIZE HISTORICAL SOVIET KRILL FISHING EXPEDITION DATA

The research project to digitize former Soviet krill fishing research, exploratory and commercial expedition’s data has been started in Ukraine at the Southern Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography. This valuable set of krill data was collected during Soviet Union krill-fishing expeditions in Southern Ocean between the years of 1972-1992. The main purpose of these expeditions was to collect data and samples and to create an estimation of the commercial exploitation of the Antarctic krill stock. The data is currently recorded in the paper forms as expedition logbooks and represent an exclusive set of observations for investigation of the environment and the impact of climate change on krill in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. The data covers more than 50 fishing cruise observer logbooks with krill fishing trawl sets, biological krill sampling. Logbook pages are scanned and the information is digitized in the CCAMLR electronic C1 format. The project will continue to provide the krill fishing efforts and distribution data in Convention areas in electronic format for scientists and CCAMLR consideration for estimations of the changes to the krill ecosystem in connection to climate change and fishing efforts. This project is started under support by the USA based Pew Charitable Trusts’ Antarctic Krill Conservation Project.