This summer brings us a new edition of Sharkatag – in Scotland and the Netherlands!
In Scotland, Sharkatag takes place around mid summer, from shore and marks around the Solway and southwest Scotland with the focus on collecting data on tope, smoothound, thornback and other shark or ray species. In the Netherlands, the event takes three days in August: Wednesday 7, Thursday 8 and Friday 9. Around ten vessels will leave ‘Neeltje Jans’ in the Eastern Schelde.
This event is NOT a competition! It is used to gather data, highlight the urgent need for shark and ray conservation in Scottish and Dutch waters and to raise the public awareness of sea angling. All animals are of course released alive, and every participant gets an instruction on how to properly handle the caught animals.
Tagged sharks get a unique tag that is entered in a computer database. So far, tagged sharks have been caught again near the Gulf of Biscay, the Channel near Boulogne Sur Mer, southern coast of Norway and the Eastern Coast of Scotland.
Most sharks caught will be starry smooth-hounds, a species that was first photographed under water by Dutch Shark Society’s photographer Peter Verhoog, but we hope to see dogfish, tope sharks and stingrays as well!
Starry smooth-hound in the Oosterschelde, picture: Peter Verhoog
See our species page for more info on the starry smooth-hound.
