Skate at the SeaLife Centre

James Thorburn will be presenting a summary of his MSc project “Ecology of the Common Skate” at the Sea Life Centre, Loch Lomond at 2pm on Monday 9th March.

Afterwards SSACN (The Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network) and SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage) will provide an update on proposed future work on Common Skate, Spur Dog and Tope which will be followed by an opportunity to discuss these projects.

Anyone interested is cordially invited but please RSVP to – contact@ssacn.org – as there will be catering !!

The aim of James’s project was to gain more insight into the life history characteristics and behaviour of the species as well as assessing the population around the Isle of Mull and Firth of Lorn.

Growth rate, annual depth migration, maturation, annual geographical movement, population composition, fishing mortality and economic importance were all assessed and the major findings are presented in this report.

As well as looking at the ecological features of the population of Common skate around the Isle of Mull, the study also focused on the economic value of the charter boat industry based in Oban that are running skate angling trips and looked at the overall value of the industry and the financial impact on other businesses in the area.

For those who cannot make it but would be interested in reading James’ thesis it can be found on our website (www.ssacn.org) in the SSACN Reading Room of the SSACN Library.

Category: SSACN Announcements