Experienced anglers are encouraged to participate in small-scale shark tagging programs that help collect important data.
Work carried out by the Manx Wildlife Trust and volunteers since 2013 has enabled over 400 animals to be tagged in Manx waters.
The plan includes small sharks, mainly tope and spurdog species, but also skates and rays.
Marine Lara Howe said the trust was “looking for experienced anglers who have fished for sharks in the past to come forward and provide tagging training.”
Training includes theory sessions on how to properly handle fish and how to use tag guns, followed by practical sessions on the boat.
Dr Howe said it was important to gain experience as working with some species was “not for the faint of heart”.
The trust works with the Department for the Environment, Food and Agriculture to collect data on Manx waters.
Based on the data collected, there have been no local recaptures of tagged sharks in the past 10 years, Dr Howe said.
However, he said several were captured in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and around the Bay of Biscay, showing they were traveling “much longer distances than originally thought”.
However, many of the specimens caught elsewhere are “landed on the market,” she said.
Dr Howe said while it was important to protect them within the island’s territorial waters, it was “not very helpful” if they were then moved to Spain or Portugal, where they were “fished and sent to market”.
“Maybe we want to create a marine reserve on the Isle of Man just for sharks,” she says.
Many questions have been answered, but as more information about the animals’ behavior is gathered, more questions are becoming clear, she added.
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