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Paper No. 7 Dec. 1937

SURVEY OF THE FISH FAUNA

BY

B j a r n i S.e m u n d s s o n f

In accordance with its geographical position, the are of great value as food for other fish. Only the depths and physical conditions of the Bay are remaining ca. 29 species are of more or less im­ merely a continuation of those in the sea off the portance as food-fishes for man. SW. coast of the island, or the boreal part of the Among those remaining 29 species we find 4 N. Atlantic. Conjoined with the bottom conditions “freshwater” forms, which can be totally disre­ this has a great influence on the life in the Bay garded as subjects of marine fishing in the Bay; as a whole, making it much richer and more varied they are: salmon (Salmo salar L.), sea-trout (Salmo than if the depth were very great, with low tempe­ trutta L.), char (Salmo alpinus L.) and eel (An­ rature and darkness in the deeper layers of the guilla vulgaris Turt.). 7 other species, viz.: starry water. For the life of the fishes this is of a great ray (Raja radiata Don.), shagrin ray (Raja fullonica importance, as the bay at the same time is a vast L.), Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus spawning area for many species, with pelagic and Schn.), basking shark (Selache maxima [Gunn.]), demersal eggs, a very good nursery for many fish picked dogfish (Squatus acanthias L.), porbeagle during the first two-three years and a rich food- (Lamna cornubica Gmel.) and long-rough dab store for many different species of fish at a more (Drepanopsetta platessoides [O. Fabr.]) are of very advanced age. In short, the bay is of great im­ little importance. Finally we have to deal with 18 portance as spawning place, nursery and hunting specimens, all valuable, some of fundamental im­ ground for an enormous number of fish of dif­ portance for the fisheries as well in Faxa Bay as ferent kinds, both inside and outside the territorial elsewhere in the Icelandic area. They are: Norway limit, and millions of these fish have yearly been haddock (Sebastes marinus [L.]), angler (Lophius caught by native and foreign fishermen over a long piscatorius L.), whiting ( merlangus L.), dab period. (Pleuronectes limanda L.), witch (Pleuronectes Of the ca. 138 species of fish at present known cynoglossus L.), megrim (Zeugopterus megastoma in the waters round Iceland inside (down to) the Don.), lemon sole (Pleuronectes microcephalus 400 m. depth-curve,1 64 are with certainty found Don.), catfish (Anarrhichas lupus L.), lump-sucker in Faxa Bay, and 10 so near to its boundary that (Cyclopterus lumpus L.), torsk (Drosmius brosme they might occasionally be found inside the limit. [Asc.]), common ling ( vulgaris Flem.), skate Of the 74 species of fish one may thus meet in the (Raja batis L.), coalfish (Gadus virens L.), halibut Bay, ca. 14 are stragglers (summer visitors) from (Hippoglossus vulgaris Flem.), plaice (Pleuronectes the Atlantic, most of them met with very rarely — platessa L.), haddock (Gadus æglefinus L.), herring one or few specimens only. Of the true residents (Clupea harengus L.) and (Gadus callarias L.). of the Bay the majority belong to the boreal and Of these 15 fishes the lump-sucker is of interest some few to the boreo-arctic or arctic fauna. Of as the fish of the Laminaria-zone, well liked as one species (Phycis borealis B. Sæm.), doubtless a food and often caught in great numbers by the deep-water form from the slopes of the continental Icelanders, but not exported. Of all the others the shelf off SW.-Iceland, 6 grown-up specimens were cod and haddock have from the first been by far found in the outer part of the Bay and its neigh­ the most valuable for the Icelanders, being their bourhood but nowhere else. Of the ca. 50 resident principal foodfishes and the cod the main article species, nearly two fifths are of no economic value, of export. The herring and the were being either to few in number, too small or un­ hardly recognized as valuable 50 years ago, the eatable; two (the lesser sandeel and the capelin) other seafishes proper were only casually caught together with cod and haddock, and with the same 1 Vide the author’s paper: Synopsis of the Fishes of gear (handline, longline with small hooks, or gill- Iceland. 1927. nets). — 35 —

In the description of the Bay I emphasized its And I do not hesitate to state that Faxa Bay has in shallowness in connection with the bottom-condi- the first instance to thank the lesser sandeel for tions as a factor of great importance for the deve­ its rich fishing grounds. lopment of a rich invertebrate fauna, which in its Another fish of great importance as food for turn forms the basis for its rich fish-fauna. Very valuable fish is the capelin. This little fish essential is the microplankton that grows up and appears towards the spring-equinoxes inmost years, fills the Bay in the spring and summer and fa­ for spawning purposes. Migrating along the coast, cilitates the spawning and first growth of the fish following the Gulfstream round the Beykjanes pe­ brood of different kinds. Towards the winter it ninsula and then crossing the mouth of the Bay, disappears and most of the pelagic fish-brood have it makes its way to the NW.-coast, or turning round settled on the bottom. Partially this fauna is a the Gardskagi point enters the Bay, usually some neritic one, composed of many different , time in April. This little fish is the favourite food sedentary on hard bottom, burrowers, like different of the cod, which gorges on it until the walls of its bivalves and polychaets, on the loose bottom; the stomach become quite a thin and transparent film. following constitute a very important part of the If the capelin enters the Bay, it will be persecuted food of , haddock and catfish: Macoma ccil- by great shoals of cod from the grounds outside caria and Nephthys ciliata on muddy bottom, the Bay. It disappears again, as a rule, in the latter Spisula elliptica on sandy bottom and 30—40 m. half of May or sometimes in June. — The third depth, My Ulus edulis in very shallow water (3—5), small and very numerous fish, the Norway Cyprina islandica on both. To this several species p o u t, which is very important as food for cod of small crustaceans, e. g., Crangon allmani, Eupa- and ling on the deeper grounds off the S. and W. gurus and Hyas may be added, as food for codling, coast, hardly enters the shallow Bay. young coalfish and other small fish. From the above it will be seen, that there is a Many of the fish that feed on this kind of non­ continual inflow of different, valuable fish into the migrating animals will be stationary all the year Bay, from about the middle of March to the end round in the Bay, while the migrating ones will of the autumn. The lump-sucker and the capelin leave the inner parts of the Bay at the end of the come for the spawning’s sake only, the mature cod year, specially the plaice, young cod and other fish, and the mature herring for feeding and for spawn­ that move out to open sea for spawning. The lesser ing as well. The Icelandic herring consists of two sandeel and some yearlings of the herring will often different races: a spring-spawner and a summer- stay (but irregularly) in the Bay through the winter spawner. Both races visit the Bay at the end of and serve as food for several of the fishes men­ April and later, in search of food (Euphausidae tioned, but save for that the winter is a relatively and Calanidae), but the first-named has already poor season for fishing, as the majority of grown­ spawned before entering the Bay, the second one up and a great number of young fish have left does so in July—August. The immature cod, the the Bay. immature herring and some other valuable fish, as In the early spring, when the temperature of the plaice, halibut, coalfish and haddock, visit the Bay water rises, and the Calanidae fill the sea, the only for the food’s sake. Thus it will be clear, that lesser sandeel in its chase for food comes a constant coming and going of shoals of different gradually in great swarms into the Bay, occupying valuable fish takes place from the early spring to all areas with sandy bottom (e. g. the above men­ the end of the autumn. tioned extraterritorial grounds of the southern part When migrating into the Bay, the fish seem to of the Bay), where it can easily dive into the sand follow the deeper channels as “ highways” from the and thus escape its enemies. In the course of the open ocean into the Bay, the Jökuldjüp and the summer the numbers of this little fish increase Cards jör (see the chart), and spread themselves rapidly, and it becomes by far the most important over the adjacent above-named grounds outside and food for nearly all the most valuable of the fishes inside the limit. But the quantities of the different of the Bay (e. g., cod, haddock, young halibut, fish are very variable from one year to another, plaice), which pursue it from the grounds outside which again has a very great influence on the the Bay and gorge on it until the close of the year. results of the fisheries.