Tagging starry smoothhound sharks in Dutch Zeeland

Starry smoothhound sharks

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

Fishermen count sharks in Zeeland

Wednesday Aug 13 2014, 08:56 (Update: 13-08-14, 09:46)

Eleven charter boats and three hundred anglers will go counting sharks for research institute Imares the next three days off the coast of Zeeland. The starry smooth hound shark is increasingly seen in the North Sea.

Overfishing made the North Sea emptier for a long time and it seemed to be not a good environment for the shark. The number of starry smoothhound sharks meanwhile appears to increase again. To see how many there are, they are counted now.

Tags

From the Neeltje Jans concrete harbour in the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier the boats depart towards the sea. Then, there will be fishing for the sharks. They will get a plastic label in their fins and will be weighed, measured and monitored to determine species and sex. Then, they will go back into the sea.

Skipper Hank Parree participates for the third time in the count, which is held in the Netherlands since 2011 and has provided more than 2000 fish with tags. “The sharks are about 1.20 meters and have no teeth but a kind of sandpaper-like tooth plates. But they are real sharks,” he explained to the NOS Radio 1 News.

Unknown

The starry smoothhound shark is seen in many places. “They swim in the Bay of Biscay, in Iceland, Scotland and Brittany. Everywhere they are found,” said Parree. Yet there is little information about the animal. This project should change that. “It’s a big operation, all to protect the sharks better”.