Pirates of the Argentine Sea
A couple hundred miles off the coast of Argentina, there is a flotilla of about 500-600 pirate ships spanning a length of nearly three hundred miles. But they're not looking for gold: they're looking for squid.
The fisherman are catching a species of squid called Illex argentinus, which feed on shrimp, crabs, and fish. These creatures feed on plankton from the Malvinas current, which is why the ships are covered with bright lights that are kept on all night long: the light brings the plankton to the surface, which brings the other creatures to the surface, which bring the squid to the surface. They then use jigging lines to catch the fish en masse.
In fact, the lights are so bright that we could still see them lighting up the sky when we were hundreds of miles away! It was truly wild. This flotilla of ships is actually referred to as the City of Lights, as it almost looks like a city from nighttime satellite imagery.
If you look at the map on the right-hand side, you can see a few clusters of lights from fishing boats. Cluster A consists of legal ships operating in the Argentine Exclusive Economic Zone, and Cluster B consists of legal ships operating in the Falkland Islands Exclusive Economic Zone. These are ships that have received permits from their respective governments and are fishing within waters that are claimed by their respective countries (the Falkland Islands have been claimed as a British Overseas Territory).
Cluster C consists of the pirate ships, which operate outside of these Exclusive Economic Zones. In fact, this is why it is so peculiarly shaped: it must avoid Argentine maritime territory to the west and Falkland maritime territory to the south. At the same time, the pirate ships want to stay as far west and south as possible because those are the areas that are rich in squid. This is what causes the cluster to have such a weird-looking shape.
The thing that's fascinating about this is that the scale of the flotilla and the amount of squid they fish is absolutely massive; however, very few people in the world are aware of its existence. There are very few people who have actually seen the flotilla in person, since this is not a common route for cruise ships to take. We only passed by because we were rerouted from Ushuaia, Argentina to Montevideo, Uruguay due to Argentina's response to COVID-19. In the sample problems below, you will explore the scale of these fishing operations.
Sample Problems
1. If each ship catches an average of 8 tons of squid per day, estimate the amount of squid caught per year, assuming that there are 500 ships actively fishing for squid in the region.
2. One ton is equal to 2,000 pounds. Convert this calculation into pounds to determine the total amount of pounds of squid caught per year by the flotilla.
3. If the squid is sold for an average price of $4 per pound, calculate the total yearly revenue that the flotilla is bringing in.
4. There are approximately 8 billion people on the planet. If this squid was equally split between every person on the planet, how much squid would each person get?
5. If each ship uses 3.6 megawatt hours of electricity per day, estimate the amount of megawatt hours the flotilla uses per day.
6. The entire city of San Francisco uses approximately 15,000 megawatt hours of electricity per day. Compare the flotilla's electricity use to San Francisco's electricity use. What percent of San Francisco's electricity usage is represented by the flotilla?