The research vessel “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen” is scheduled to undertake several fishery resources surveys in the North Arabian Sea during 1983-84. These investigations are part of the UNDP/FAO Global Programme GLO/82/001.
The first cruise in Iranian waters under this programme was carried out in late September 1983. The survey programme included acoustical survey for the purpose of mapping fish distribution and abundance estimation, trawling for identification of echo recordings, biological sampling and hydrographical work.
The vessel carried out similar surveys in these waters during the North Arabean Sea Programme 1975-1976. These investigations are reported in five cruise reports, and further analysed by Kesteven et al. (1981).
The present survey should, according to the original cruise plan, carry out similar investigations on the shelf of Iran, from Ras al Shir to the Pakistanian border in the period 21 May-2 June 1984.
After about 2 days work on this survey, breakdown in the electric generator made it impossible to operate the trawl gears, and 7 days of the original cruise plan were lost repairing the generator in Dubai. In addition, formal restrictions on travel for the Iranian scientists, reduced the vessels operational time severely. As a consequence the original survey programme had to be reduced and was limited to an acoustic coverage of the mesopelagic resources of the Iranian side of the Oman gulf.
Scientific staff.
Egil Ona (cruise leader), K. Pittman, K. Strømsnes, A. Roald, T. Mørk, all from the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway.
From Marine Fisheries Departement, Bander Abbas: Bahram Ansari.
