SSACN - Tagsharks

Status of the Shark–Infographic

sharkman — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:32:12 +0000

Here is a fine example of an infographic from the Discovery Channel.

Note :: It is quite a large image so may take a while to download.

Auchencairn Primary 23/01/12

sharkman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:48:08 +0000

On the 23^rd of January Lewis visited Auchencairn Primary School in Kirkcudbrightshire. The visit was for the upper class (primary 5-7) and was attended by 16 pupils and 4 adults.

The visit started with a short talk about sharks and more specifically, sharks in Scotland and the work of the SSTP. Pupils were extremely enthusiastic and inquisitive, asking lots of questions and getting very involved in short activities and a question session.

Following the introductory talk, the pupils were taken to the nearby Rascarrel beach where both pupils and teachers searched the shoreline for shark egg cases. All pupils found shark eggs on the beach and then identified the species of shark that had laid the eggs. This exercise was used to teach pupils about sharks that are literally on their doorstep, Auchencairn Primary regularly carries out beach cleans at Rascarrel and now plan to incorporate shark egg case hunts into annual beach cleaning events.

On the beach they played a Shark Length game, a long rope is stretched across the beach that has loops tied at the length of different sharks. Each pupil was given a small “shark card” that has a picture of a shark and a little info about each shark including what it eats and how long it is, they then worked together to put the sharks on the rope in the right order.

For each shark the pupils were asked whether that species was found in Scotland or not. This game proved extremely popular and pupils (and teachers!) were amazed by how big some Scottish sharks really are.

After lunch Lewis gave another short talk covering the biology of sharks and explained to the pupils how different species of shark are adapted to different ways of living. Again the pupils were extremely enthusiastic and asked lots of questions (to the point where they were asking so many questions I was almost running out of time to cover all the material I had planned!)

After this session pupils played our SSTP Build-A-Shark game; this simple game allows pupils to pick from a selection of paper shark heads, bodies and tails that fit together like a jigsaw to build a unique shark which they then coloured in and wrote a short story about using information printed on the sheets.

One of the most satisfying elements of the visit was asking the pupils to say the first thing they thought of when they heard the word shark, both at the beginning and the end of the session. At the beginning words like big, scary, and killers were mentioned and at the end things like endangered, Scottish and too much fishing were mentioned.

Scan of a letter from Mrs Maxwell (Auchencairn Primary Head Teacher)

SSACN AGM

sharkman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:32:36 +0000

Though our first attempt to hold the AGM was scuppered by the weather, this time, despite all frost, ice and odd bit of snow, a goodly number made it and we managed to get it done.

Thanks to all those who turned up; my apologies for the quality of the photo and to those who were stood to the right of me and didn’t get included in it.

A particular thank you goes to our SSTP Coordinators Julie and Lewis and the guys from the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust (SIFT) who came along and gave their presentations.

The Minutes of the Meeting plus accompanying documents will be sent out top all Members shortly and soon after that will be available in our Reading Room.

This year’s target area for expansion is our Educational Outreach programme whereby we aim to build on our Primary School programme and develop it into a combination of formal and informal modules, including some practical coaching, which will be delivered through a variety of outlets. There’s plenty of work to be done so if you’d like to get involved, just drop us a line via our ‘Contact Us’ facility.

EU Project to Protect Threatened Sharks

sharkman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:21:22 +0000

Open-ocean shark populations throughout the world are dropping, not only due to overfishing but also from inadvertent captures by fishermen in search of tuna and other target species.

In an effort to protect these vulnerable animals, the MADE (Mitigating Adverse Ecological Impacts of Open Ocean Fisheries) project receives €2,980,000 in EU funding and is working to develop ways to reduce their unintentional killing.

To develop methods to spare sharks, MADE researchers are combining biological and technological studies with economic analyses at a variety of sites in the Indian and Atlantic oceans. Researchers are currently analysing the data collected and exploring the potential of many options, such as:

Closing fishing zones at times when sharks are likely to be in the area
Defining methods to prevent sharks from being caught by hooks, such as an optimal vertical distribution of hooks or using an artificial bait
Successfully releasing living sharks after they are captured, while ensuring the safety of fishing crews

Around 50 sharks from several species – including blue, silky and oceanic whitetip sharks – have been electronically tagged. This is providing reliable information on sharks’ behaviour and migration, for over 1600 days, that could be used to protect them. MADE researchers are also working in close cooperation with fishermen to develop alternative fishing strategies and new technologies.

The full article can be read here.

Changes to Tagging Procedure

sharkman — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:26:31 +0000

This article covers some changes that will be implemented to tagging procedure over the coming months.

Depth Gauge for Canulas

You may be aware of an issue that was raised about a common skate having sores around the tagging site. Other info on this subject can be found here, including an explanation of why the sores form.

After consultation with Francis Neat from Marine Scotland Science, we are convinced this has been caused by the tag not being pushed in far enough (allowing the tag to move, effectively slowing or preventing healing).

To get round this we will be issuing a short length of plastic pipe which can be cut to the required length and pushed over the canula to act as a depth gauge. This should stop any of the problems by ensuring tags are placed at an optimal depth and are firmly anchored, unable to move.

SSACN tagging guidelines are available here. It is extremely important that tags are inserted at the right depth and angle to minimise irritation and allow healing. Tags should be inserted at 45° and the canula should be twisted slightly before removal to ensure the tag is firmly anchored.

Introduction of Tagging Guns

We are eventually hoping to roll out the tagging guns to all taggers over the coming months. This will enable us to tag smaller fish as we are missing out on a lot of data from small spurdog. Tagging guns will be used to tag spurdog, smoothhound, bull huss and rays.

As we are still trialling tagging guns we will first be issuing them to our Silver Taggers (25 fish) or people who have gone through the appropriate training to start with. During this period any feedback from tagging gun users is welcome.

Tagging guns have already been used by some taggers and have yielded recaptures successfully whilst streamlining the entire tagging process. Using tagging guns, fish can be tagged in the water minimising stress to both the fish and angler!

Revamped Tagging Record Cards

We have also revamped out tagging record cards which are now available online. The new record cards have been designed to include undersize fish that have not been tagged which are recorded as a simple tally mark.

Record cards can be downloaded here. Records can be submitted online at – http://www.tagsharks.com/submit-tag-data

How Nuclear Bombs May Play a Role in Basking Shark Conservation

sharkman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:18:51 +0000

A fascinating article by Li Ling Hamady of the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography explains how scientists have found a “silver lining to mushroom clouds” by using the remnants of a past nuclear age to try and protect remaining populations of Basking Sharks which are considered vulnerable to critically endangered worldwide.

Though they are the world’s second largest fish behind whale sharks, basking sharks remain a closed book scientifically.

In the article, Li states “for conservation strategies to be effective, you first need basic knowledge of where marine animals live, mate, and give birth. But all of that remains largely unknown for basking sharks. Pregnant females and young juveniles have never been spotted.

“Tags can remain on sharks only a year at the most, and basking sharks may live for more than 50 years. So to figure out shark migrations over their lifetimes, we use another technique.”

Li takes vertebrae samples from stranded sharks collected over several years and then looks for a radioactive isotope 14C signature from nuclear bomb blasts in the 1950’s.

With an in depth knowledge of how such nuclear blasts react with the environment it is possible to detect if the deep-diving behaviour of sharks that seen in the short term using tags occurs over their lifetimes. Preliminary results from our vertebrae analyses indicate that Basking Sharks may make regular excursions into the deep.

By assessing different radioactive isotopes in the sharks vertebrae Li also hopes to establish where the sharks are going. Different areas of the ocean have different ratios of radioactive elements (this isotope landscape is referred to as an isoscape) which Basking Sharks ingest. She states “Since you are what you eat, by comparing the signatures in the vertebrae to isoscape maps of their zooplankton food sources in the Atlantic Ocean, we should be able to pinpoint the pathways of their migrations.”

Basking Sharks travel far and wide, entering waters where they have different levels of protection. It is hoped that a greater understanding of their movements will pave the way for a multinational conservation plan.

Li concludes “the techniques we’re developing to study basking sharks will also be applicable to other highly mobile, understudied, endangered ocean species, such as whale sharks and great whites.”

Read this fascinating article in full here – http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=125909§ionid=1020

Longliners Must Now Return Tope

sharkman — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:09:19 +0000

Commercial fishermen using longlines, which are thought to take a huge amount of tope bycatch, must now return tope (and other sharks) to the sea unharmed in most European waters.

From the official journal of the EU catches taken from EU and international waters of I, IIa, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, XII and XIV with longlines of tope shark (Galeorhinus galeus), kitefin shark (Dalatias licha), bird beak dogfish (Deania calcea), leafscale gulper shark (Centrophorus squamosus), greater lanternshark (Etmopterus princeps), smooth lanternshark (Etmopterus pusillus), Portuguese dogfish (Centroscymnus coelolepis) and spurdog (Squalus acanthias) are included.

When accidentally caught, these species shall not be harmed. Specimens shall be promptly released.

This means the tope are now on the commission’s radar.

The next stage is to try and get tope quoted at the CFP talks next December.

This may seem an odd way of doing things but until a species is quoted you cannot get a reduction in their TAC (total allowable catch) !

No related posts.

Two Days Afloat in Loch Sunart

sharkman — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:10:55 +0000

By Gordon Goldie

With the higher than normal winds curtailing a lot of boat fishing pretty much since the Tagathon event in November, I’d been dying to get back up to my boat at Loch Sunart for a couple of days to see what was about. As always, I’d been watching the weather forecast for days beforehand and it was looking good for the weekend with SE winds below 10mph for both days. Billy McCormack was to be my crew mate and we were joined for Saturday by Darren, Paul and Graham on Paisley Pete – another Warrior 165.

Launching at Salen (http://www.salenjetty.co.uk/) on Saturday went as smoothly as usual and we had lines down at my favourite mark for just before 9.30. The others were out slightly earlier and Darren had been straight into a decent fish when he boated a nice spurdog at 10lb 10oz. We only had to wait half an hour ourselves for our first “banger” to show and this was to be the pattern for the rest of the day.

There was a brief respite from the spurdogs around slack low water about 2.30 in the afternoon. When I say “respite”, a large skate decided to devour a single calamari and battle commenced. We began to think this was a male fish as it did a lot of thrashing about and nodding around the seabed where it held solidly for 20 minutes. Very gently. I managed to get a few half turns of line back and it was soon rising slowly at a rate of two reel turns per rod lift. This mark was 210 feet deep which was 90 reel turns to my leader knot. I managed to get it about two thirds of the way to the surface when the brand new braid unfortunately snapped and it was gone.

As the flood tide began, the spurs returned. Many were around the 7-8lb size and all but two were female. We had several “doubles” with the biggest one of the day bending the scales to 14lb 9oz. It was decided to fish on into the dark and return to moor at the jetty by GPS. Our final tally for the day was a fantastic 35 spurdogs falling to squid and mackerel baits, 20 of which are now fitted with SSTP micro tags. All were clean fish apart from one which had a small bug clinging to it’s flank. I’ll hopefully find out from the kindly boffins at Marine Scotland what it was?

Over on Paisley Pete, they’d packed up to go home earlier on, but still ended with 12 tagged fish including one recapture. This included five into double figures. Other species we landed were a small thornback ray, a few small whiting and numerous LSDs.

Once again, we stayed with Nikki and Richard at the excellent Salen House B’n’B (http://www.salenhouse.co.uk/). After a hot shower at the digs, it was a short saunter up to the nearby Salen Hotel (http://www.salenhotel.co.uk/) for dinner, a very quiet shandy, a review of the photos we’d taken and to reflect on our good fortune. Being very dedicated anglers, we only had a couple of drinks and were of course in bed for 10pm (?????).

Sunday dawned colder and windier with my head feeling as though it had a Vulcan bomber performing very noisy destructive engine tests inside. I’m sure this must have been down to the balsamic vinegar I had on my chips the previous evening???? After a fantastic breakfast, it was back to the same mark we’d fished the previous day. Things didn’t go quite to plan though and it was lunchtime before I’d tagged the first decent spur of the day – a nice female of exactly 7lb. Surprisingly and disappointingly, this was to be our only biggie of the day. We fished several different marks up and down the loch, including some “exploring” work to the South of Carna island. After being liberally sprayed with bait, rain, food etc. for two days, the boat was tidied and lines were up for just after 4pm. The low water recovery was easy enough thanks to the deep water at the slipway and after securing everything it was off home, tired but happy.

Good fishing. Good company. Good weekend!

New App Lets Users Track Tagged Great Whites

sharkman — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:48:04 +0000

A U.S conservation organisation has released an app that allows iPhone and iPad users to track the movement of several Great White Sharks fitted with satellite tags.

This novel idea came from marine biologist Michael Domeier, the president of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, who has studied these iconic sharks for many years.

The aim of this project is to raise public awareness and to fund conservation projects for the species which is currently listed as “vulnerable”.

It is hoped that the money generated can be used to expand current research programmes to include more sophisticated tags that will be fitted with cameras and to target juvenile sharks (which are the most vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures).

Talking about the future of tagging research, Domeier stated “This may sound like science fiction, but a lot of the things we’re doing now would have sounded like science fiction 30 years ago.”

More information on this story can be found here.

Underwater Footage of Common Skate

sharkman — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:35:25 +0000

Below is some excellent underwater footage of a large male common skate recorded in January 2012 in 60m of water off the Black Craig, Orkney.

The footage was recorded by Dan Wise. Copyright the Orkney Skate Trust.

The screenshot (right) shows a close up still of the skate swimming.

More footage of skate underwater can be viewed on the Orkney Skate Trust website here.

Below is a short clip of a female common skate coming to the boat in the Sound of Jura. The fish was caught by Patrick Lawlor, her weight was calculated using SSTP charts at 174lb.