With the Tarajoq off Greenland

Fish, plankton, climate change: an unusual research expedition begins off the coast of Greenland. For the first time, East and Southwest Greenland are coming into focus - with round-the-clock fishing operations. What the "Tarajoq" discovers in the process could be decisive for the future of fishing.

On Sunday, 14 September, we start our journey in Germany. One team boards the plane in Hamburg and the other in Bremen. Both have a common destination: Iceland. Later that day, we meet in the harbour in Hafnarfjörður, where we board the Greenlandic research vessel "Tarajoq". We have to spend a day longer than planned in the harbour because a storm is still raging in East Greenland. We finally set off at midday on Tuesday. We leave the harbour and set course for the first stations. This year, we are once again working to develop sustainable recommendations for policy makers. For the environment and society!

We leave Iceland and steam northwards along the West coast. From there we go westwards towards Greenland and conduct our first station half-way between Iceland and Greenland. The goal of the survey is similar to the last years: we collect data to provide scientific advice on sustainable fishing opportunities for policy makers. This is not as easy as it sounds. A famous fishery scientist said once: “Counting fish is like counting trees but fish move and you cannot see them”. The net goes in and out again and again because we work “24/7” in two 12 hours shifts. A stressful job!

The weather is on our side! This is not always the case because it is normal that heavy autumn storms sometimes last 4 or 5 days, which means that nobody can work. However, the weather is great this year and we complete one station after the other. We focus our work on the commercially relevant species Atlantic cod and redfish. Biological samples are taken and the otoliths removed for age-determination in the laboratory later. We measure lengths and weights of a lot of individuals. This helps us to draw conclusions about the state of the stock of these species, which is the basis of our scientific recommendations.

We work hard and the days pass quickly and soon we reach the end of this exciting survey. We go into harbor in Iceland on September 28th carrying four heavy boxes of samples and many nice memories. But all of us are also tired. 12-hour shifts are exhausting and everybody is looking forward to a couple of calm days at home.

Impressions of this cruise can as well be found on the Thünen webpage on Instagram (Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut (@thuenen_institut) • Instagram-Fotos und -Videos). Goodbye.