Archive for December, 2011

Clyde nephrops discards
Approximately 80 tonnes of biomass are discarded every working day by nephrops trawlers in the Clyde Sea area (Scotland) compared with only 0.7 tonnes in the Central Adriatic. On a fleet basis that means that every year a minimum of 25,000 tonnes is discarded in the Clyde Sea area and 35,000 tonnes in the Central […]

Sainsbury’s – West coast prawns NOT sustainable
Sainsbury’s, the food retailer, have removed all mention of ‘sustainability’ from the packaging of their prawn products sourced from the Scottish Langoustine Project. Sainsbury’s have published the following statement on their Twitter feed which would seem to suggest that they no longer view their prawns as sustainably-sourced : “We implemented our sustainability rating system in […]

Scot Gov in breach of Habitats Directive ?
Recreational salmon fishermen are taking legal action against the Scottish government in Brussels, claiming ministers have failed to protect stocks. The anglers claim the Scottish Government has endangered salmon numbers on the River South Esk, Angus, and are lodging a legal complaint with the EC. The move follows a government decision to extend the netting […]

An Extraordinary Recapture!
Over the last few years the SSTP has brought together tagging data from our own database and historical data from the Glasgow Museum Tagging Programme and the UK Shark Tagging Programme to form a single database of Scottish shark tagging information. Analysis of this data over the last few weeks has brought one particularly interesting […]

SSTP Progress Report – December 2011
Welcome to the December 2011 issue of the Scottish Shark Tagging Programme (SSTP) Newsletter which highlights some of the key moments in another successful year and an insight to some opportunities for next year. We hope you will find it an enjoyable and informative read. You can read the full newsletter by following the link […]

Action on Shark Finning Welcome
The European Commission has adopted a proposal for a complete ban on the practice of shark finning – where fins are sliced off sharks when vessels are at sea, and the dead or dying shark is thrown back to sea. The move follows the Scottish Government’s lead, which strengthened the shark finning ban for Scottish […]

Handgrips in skate
Any idea what caused the wound in the following photo ? No ! Well, skate and rays are common bycatch in many trawled fisheries; to return the fish to the water some commercial fisherman cut a ‘handhold’ in the fish to make them easy to handle; with larger fish they will cut a slit in […]

Solway offshore wind farm–feasibility study
Dong Energy have been awarded an exclusivity agreement from the Crown Estate to investigate the feasibility of developing an offshore wind farm proposal within the Outer Solway. The area that they are currently considering for a potential site will be at least eight kilometres away from the coastline and fully within the broader area identified […]