Sharks, Rays, and Skates…in Northern Ireland?!

BY HEIDI MCILVENNY

“I am the Project Coordinator of a shark conservation project in Northern Ireland”

This statement usually generates a lot of confused faces and curious questions – ‘Sharks? In Northern Ireland? Wait… Where is Northern Ireland?’

Northern Ireland is a small part, of a small island, off the west coast of the United Kingdom. If you’ve heard of my home country then you’re likely to know us for the Giants Causeway (a bunch of basalt columns), the Titanic (the most famous ship that sank), or The Troubles (our troubling history). But there is a valuable part of our heritage that has been lost in cultural memory – our sharks, skates and rays (elasmobranchs). 

Many people do not realise that sharks, skates and rays live in our local seas, even though we have at least 20 species that live here all year round, and more than 40 that pass through our waters on their yearly migrations. In fact, our coastal waters are home to some of the rarest, largest, most vulnerable and under-appreciated elasmobranchs and I would like to shine light and love on them in this blog, starting with the ‘Manta Ray of the Atlantic’!

Meet the Flapper Skate (Dipturus intermedius); the largest skate in the world reaching 3m long and 2m wide and living to be 100 years old. A critically endangered species on the IUCN Red List, this Flapper Skate was the first clear case of a fish brought to the brink of extinction by overfishing (Brander, 1981). Northern Ireland is now one of the few remaining places this species is still found, and it is protected through the Wildlife Order, designating the highest level of protection available for it in NI law.  

Historically there has been some confusion about their name. For decades the Flapper Skate was called the Common Skate, but recent genetic research found that the Common Skate was actually a species complex made up of the Flapper Skate and the Blue Skate. This taxonomic mistake has damaged conservation efforts by giving the species a false sense of security as false records of the Flapper Skate (which are actually the Blue Skate) do not accurately reflect the level of decline it is facing.

Flapper Skate was a popular sport fish in the 60’s and 70’s and people would travel from all over Europe to Northern Ireland specifically to fish them. But as populations declined, surviving Flapper Skate found refuge on the rocky seabed in the deep waters where trawlers could not reach them.

Anglers caught a Flapper Skate in Strangford Lough (photo from the 1970s).

Currently there is very little data on the life history for this species, making it difficult to develop sound conservation and management plans. Fortunately, a small group in Northern Ireland, never forgot about the Flapper Skate; our local sea-anglers. 

Through the Sea Deep tagging project (@SEADEEPNI) volunteer sea-anglers are generating unique abundance and distribution data on the Flapper Skate. Along with their tacit knowledge, this data has informed academic research, and national and international policy for the conservation of the species. The data is currently being used by government to designate a Marine Protected Area (MPA) for the Flapper Skate. This species shows relatively high site-fidelity meaning that it has a ‘home-site’ and doesn’t make long migrations. This makes it a good candidate for an MPA.

Flapper Skate being tagged by angler

Through the Sea Deep project, anglers have taken ownership of the future of the Flapper Skate and it has taken a collaborative effort between anglers, NGO’s, academic researchers, and government to get this far. Currently the MPA is ‘proposed’ and not fully designated, but we will continue our efforts to achieve a network of MPA’s protecting the Flapper Skate throughout its range. 

If you’d like to learn more about elasmobranchs in Northern Ireland check out the Shark Guide on the Sea Deep website.

As a marine biology student, I believed I would have to move to a tropical country to follow my ambitions of working in shark conservation, and I did just that. But now I’m home, and while the water’s a little cooler, so are the shark species!

To learn more about Heidi’s work, connect with her on social media:

Twitter @HeidiMcIlvenny

Instagram @heidi_mcilvenny