For the first time, cod and squid have been discovered in deep water in the central Arctic. Knowledge that can be crucial for the protection of untouched ecosystems when the ice disappears. Hear more in the P1 documentary The Arctic Expedition.
That was at the end of October 2019 in the Arctic winter darkness, far out on the ice, as the Swedish researcher Pauline Snoeijs Leijonmalm became the first in the world to catch fish at the North Pole.
– Oh my God, shouts Pauline Snoeijs Leijonmalm, professor of marine ecology at Stockholm University, in wild joy.
The scientists’ headlights flash out in the mountains of the fish in the Arctic winter darkness.
– This is incredible, she continues.
It’s a cod at one kilogram, coming from 375 meters deep, 50 miles from the North Pole.
– It’s impossible, so far north. No one has ever caught a fish here, says Pauline Snoeijs Leijonmalm.
She has been preparing for this moment for more than five years.
Pauline Snoeijs Leijonmalm has been commissioned by the EU to investigate whether there are fish and, if so, what and how much in deep water in the central Arctic. An area larger than the Mediterranean.
Knowledge of possible fish stocks here could be decisive for whether the Arctic ecosystems need to be protected more from commercial fishing, now that the ice is disappearing due to climate change.
Under the record-breaking the expedition Mosaic, which started in September 2019 and lasted for a year, Pauline Snoeijs Leijonmalm and her colleagues received a total of only four fish.
It was Atlantic cod and cod that caught. But the researchers also captured about fifty octopuses in the image, using a deep-sea camera.
Sonar was also used during the expedition, which revealed that the fish that are present are at a depth of between 3-400 meters, where it is also some degree warmer than closer to the surface.
Be the cod and octopus come from and how they live in the Arctic are now being analyzed. The researchers are preparing a scientific publication of their findings, and are now waiting for analyzes from stomach contents and water samples containing DNA from fish in the Arctic.
– Should I kiss the fish, Pauline Snoeij’s Leijonmalm asks her colleagues out on the ice.
– You promised, she gets the answer.
Hear more in the P1 documentary The Arctic Expedition or in Vetenskapsradion Pรฅ Djupet.
Source: ICELAND NEWS