The terminal crisis of the Loligo squid ( Loligo gahi ) in the usurped waters of the Malvina Islands has pushed the British administration to cross an environmental and geopolitical red line. A report by journalist Karina Fernández, published by Revista Puerto , documents the occupying government's decision to unilaterally raise the bycatch limit for Argentine hake ( Merluccius hubbsi ) from 10% to 50% , while simultaneously planning to increase direct pressure on the species through Class A fishing licenses.

The colonial alibi claims that hake acts as a "voracious predator" that wipes out squid. Under this hypothesis, the British authorize a selective slaughter that not only lacks biological rigor but also directly undermines nearly three decades of sovereign conservation policies implemented by the Argentine Republic and monitored by the National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP).

The destruction of the best Argentine breeding stock

The scientific response from Mar del Plata dismantles the colonial narrative. In an interview with Revista Puerto , Otto Wöhler, Director of Research at INIDEP , warned of the seriousness of British actions: the Argentine hake (Merluccius hubbsi) exceeds the limits of the Argentine continental Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) during its migratory cycle, and the specimens that reach those southern latitudes are precisely the largest: the best breeders of the stock .

According to estimates from INIDEP, the extractive pressure on this resource in the Malvina Islands and the adjacent area already exceeds 110,000 tons per year (between 60,000 and 70,000 captured under illegal colonial licenses and about 50,000 at mile 201).

The supposed "abundance" touted by the Malvina Islanders is neither a biological miracle nor a spontaneous plague: it is the direct result of the Permanent Closed Area for the Protection of Juvenile Hake , which Argentina has rigorously maintained since 1997 in the San Jorge Gulf and adjacent waters. While the coastal state restricts fishing to guarantee sustainability, the enclave usurps this biological success, using it as a commodity for commercial disposal.

Fishing blind: British scientific inconsistency

The technical fragility of the colonial regime is revealed when comparing its own official figures:

This means that in a single season they extract more volume than the total biomass they claim to harvest.

Wöhler fundamentally questioned the predatory relationship the colony is trying to impose: hake is distributed and caught mainly in the northwest of the islands, while the Loligo squid inhabits and is exploited in the southwest. For the INIDEP scientist, the "predatory hake" theory appears to be a smokescreen: "We don't know to what extent it might be an excuse for a problem of mismanagement. What could be worrying is removing hake from the area due to overfishing to favor the other resource."

Andreas Winter, the head of Fisheries Science for the occupying forces, had downplayed the impact of the hake in November 2024 at the University of Washington, acknowledging that it is an omnivorous species and that variations are primarily due to oceanographic factors such as the Malvina Current. Today, economic pressures impose a contradiction.

The lobby's revolving door and Vigo's complicity

The institutional framework behind this ecocide reveals the collusion between occupying officials and fishing corporations:

The final destination of this bycatch remains the Vigo estuary. The 16 trawlers flying colonial flags belong to seven Galician shipowning groups (led by Pescapuerta, Copemar, Pereira, and Marfrío ), while 11 of the 24 hake fishing licenses (type A) granted last year correspond directly to vessels flying the Spanish flag. Around 25% of Vigo's fish landings come from the islands.

A direct attack on the economy and national sovereignty

The impact is not limited to reproductive damage in the Argentine Sea: it also involves commercial aggression. Spain is the main buyer of Argentine hake fillets (with 15,456 tons imported for $56 million so far this year) and a rapidly growing market for whole frozen hake.

By authorizing the depletion of hake with illegal licenses and an excessive bycatch of 50%, the British colony and its Galician partners seek to flood the European market with catches of illegal origin, competing unfairly against the exports of the fleet and industry that pays taxes and generates employment in the ports of Patagonia.

The collapse of the Loligo exposed the fragility of an enclave whose current income depends 58% on fishing royalties. Faced with fiscal bankruptcy and the standstill of its partner fishing companies, the British Crown is abandoning any pretense of sustainability and resorting to the open plundering of Argentine hake .