RESULTS OF 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 realized in Ukraine at the Southern Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography of the Ukraine State Fishery Committee and at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. This valuable set of krill data was collected during Soviet Union krill-fishing expeditions in Southern Ocean between the years of 1972-1991. 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 was recorded in the paper forms as expedition logbooks and represent an exclusive set of observations for investigation of the environment and the climate change impact on krill population in the Southern Ocean. The data covers 58 fishing cruise observer logbooks with krill fishing trawl sets, biological krill sampling. Logbook pages were scanned and the information was digitized in the CCAMLR Data Form C1 (2009) - 68 files (C1 forms) total. The project provided 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 has been fulfilled under support by the USA based Pew Charitable Trusts’ Antarctic Krill Conservation Project.