Endangered Species

This project aims to set up a monitoring programme to increase our knowledge of bluefin tuna migrations with special reference to their residency in Irish coastal waters and specific use of these habitats, reasons for their presence after more than a decade of near absence up to 2015 and establish whether they are likely to remain as persistent migrants in coming years. This project will contribute to the National reporting obligations for management of large pelagic fish species in Irish waters and to assess MSFD and OSPAR indicators for exploited deep-water species.

The definition of marine habitats as ordinated biological community complexes can allow variations in structure and prevalence of species to be used to show change that may be linked to environmental pressures. To date, the inshore intertidal and subtidal reef has not been the subject of the same degree of focused surveys as the offshore. As a result, Ireland’s knowledge of the communities that occur here is qualitative and patchy.

The EMFF Offshore Reef project, SeaRover (Sensitive ecosystem Assessment & ROV Exploration of Reef) was a three-year project (2017-2019). Project objectives were to map offshore reef habitats with a view to protecting them from deterioration due to fishing pressures.This project will synthesise the output of all three surveys and, in consultation with the most important end-users, map out how the data should be disseminated, analysed and developed into products and tools used for policy support.

This project will monitor the recovery of exploited deep-water species following the decline of the deep-water fisheries in Irish waters.

The key importance of Tralee Bay (but also Clew and Galway) for endangered skates (and the skate-like angel shark) is well known and confirmed thanks to the first two years of EMFF work under the Biodiversity Scheme, and following on from Purse Search, IFI, ICES advice and the recent Irish Red List report. The threats to these species in the area are largely due to tangle netting for crawfish. The species in question are the white skate, common skates, undulate ray, common stingray and the angel shark.

Crayfish stocks are heavily depleted in Irish waters. This depletion has been driven by over exploitation since the introduction of tangle netting in the 1970s. The restoration potential relies on acquiring better data on crayfish essential habitat, information on migration and stock structure and in managing fishing interactions.

Many of the stocks which are caught by the Irish commercial fishing fleets are considered to be data-limited or are not assessed at all. These include a number of key stone species (like sprat, gurnards, saithe, pollack, ling) and species sensitive to the impacts of fishing (like rays and skates, john dory, brill and turbot). For these stocks, the fishing mortality is unknown and MSY reference points are not established. This lack of quantifiable targets is an impediment to the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) as well as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).

The native European flat oyster is depleted throughout its former European range. Ireland still has a number of extant populations some of which are commercially fished but production and productivity is much reduced compared to historic levels. Oysters, in addition to being commercially valuable and a significant potential source of income for coastal fishing communities, provide valuable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, maintenance of water quality and provision of structural habitat that may support high biodiversity.

Skates are a branch of the shark family, we sometimes called them flat-sharks. Some of these flat-sharks or skates are extremely rare with Ireland holding some of their last remaining European populations. The main refuges for these species are Tralee and Galway Bay.

Crayfish stocks are heavily depleted in Irish waters. This depletion has been driven by over exploitation since the introduction of tangle netting in the 1970s. The restoration potential relies on acquiring better data on crayfish essential habitat, information on migration and stock structure and in managing fishing interactions.