Satellite transmitters were also tested, and reliable receptions received and sent by Argos via email to the ship. Everything is ready for deployment once birds that have finished molting are found. Deployments are expected to begin in about one week as the probable peak of molting is passed and many satisfactory birds become available. The highlight of the last week was our series of four successful bottom trawls ranging in depth from 300-500 m. Invertebrate and vertebrate biomass was enormous, suggesting that much of the life in the coastal zone, as viewed from our net and acoustic surveys, is in the upper 100 m of the water column and on the bottom. We captured over 25 species of fishes in those four trawls alone.
Fish continue to be poorly represented in the midwater.
We completed 10 dives, including video transects, and 6 Mocness tows, two with simultaneous acoustics. No Euphausia superba were found during the dives, and E. crystallorophias, when present, were not strongly associated with the ice, but found at depths starting at 7 m. We have had good success using the 1-m Mocness to verify some of the acoustic targets, and in one instance, the net was at the correct depth to sample a school of krill seen acoustically. We had one catch of E. superba at the shelf break, but on the shelf we continued to find low zooplankton biomass in the water column, no E. superba and low catches of E. crystallorophias. Copepods have dominated the catches when euphausiids are absent.