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A Summary of Demersal Fish Tagging Data Maintained and Published by Cefas

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A Summary of Demersal Fish Tagging Data Maintained and Published by Cefas Science Series Technical Report no.135 A summary of demersal fish tagging data maintained and published by Cefas G. Burt, D. Goldsmith and M. Armstrong Science Series Technical Report no.135 A summary of demersal fish tagging data maintained and published by Cefas G. Burt, D. Goldsmith and M. Armstrong August 2006 This report should be cited as: Burt, G., Goldsmith, D. and Armstrong, M., 2006. A summary of demersal fish tagging data maintained and published by Cefas. Sci. Ser. Tech Rep., Cefas Lowestoft, 135: 40pp. Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank all Cefas colleagues who have assisted in compiling and publishing this report, and who have provided advice on the content and layout. Thanks are also due to the skippers, crew members and scientists involved with the initial tagging work, as well as the fishing industry and members of the general public for the return of the tags. © Crown copyright, 2006 This publication (excluding the logos) may be re-used free of charge in any format or medium for research for non-commercial purposes, private study or for internal circulation within an organisation. This is subject to it being re-used accurately and not used in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Crown copyright and the title of the publication specified. This publication is also available at www.cefas.co.uk/publications/ techrep/tech135.pdf For any other use of this material please apply for a Click-Use Licence for core material at www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licences/ core/core_licence.htm, or by writing to: HMSO’s Licensing Division St Clements House 2-16 Colegate Norwich NR3 1BQ Fax: 01603 723000 E-mail: [email protected] Contents 1. Introduction 5 2. Tag types 7 3. Data archiving 10 3.1 Paper records and biological material collections 10 3.2 Electronic records 10 4. Tagging data summaries 12 4.1 Flatfish 13 4.2 Roundfish 19 4.3 Elasmobranchs 24 4.4 Other species 32 5. Cefas tagged fish publications 35 5.1 Flatfish 35 5.2 Roundfish 37 5.3 Elasmobranchs 39 5.4 Other species 40 5.5 General publications 40 5 1. Introduction 1 INTRODUCTION Scientists at Cefas have carried out extensive tagging Report is to provide a comprehensive inventory of marine studies on a wide range of commercially important fish demersal fish tagging data held on the database up to species around the United Kingdom and more distant the end of 2005. The sources and extent of any historical waters as far north as the Barents Sea and Greenland tagging data not yet captured on the database are identified Sea. Although Cefas has tagged fish since the early as far as has been possible. Cefas has also tagged pelagic 1900s, this Technical Report concentrates on fish tagged fish, shellfish and freshwater fin-fish species but these are since the late 1940s. Mark and recapture experiments not covered by the present report. A list of relevant Cefas using conventional (non-electronic) tags provide valuable publications that have used the tagging results is given, information about the movements and growth rates of in order to increase the accessibility and awareness of fish, and provide an insight into stock structure, mixing of historical and current literature for use in future studies and stocks and the implications of this for management of the collaborations with other institutes. fishery. Appropriately designed tagging studies can also Throughout this report, the numbers of releases are provide estimates of fishing mortality. The development summarised at the scale of decades and ICES Sub-Areas or of electronic data-storage tags (DSTs) since the 1990s has Divisions (see Figure 1.1, overleaf). The data and publications allowed continuous records of the horizontal and vertical listed in the report summarise all the information available to movements of individual fish between the points of release the authors, but may not be complete. and recapture. Electronic tags are now also being used This report is published on the Cefas Internet site in to study how fish behaviour is affected by environmental Adobe® .pdf format. Additional information regarding variables such as temperature. current tagging programmes, electronic tag technology At Cefas, tagging information is maintained in the Tagged and how to return a tagged fish can be found by visiting Fish Database. The primary purpose of this Technical www.cefas.co.uk. Figure 1.1. ICES Sub-Areas (a) 18° 16° 14° 12° 10° 8° 6° 4° 2° 0° 2° 4° 6° 8° and Divisions. (a) around the 64° waters of the United Kingdom and (b) distant waters north of the Faroe Islands. Va IIa Faroe Islands 62° Vb1 1 INTRODUCTION XII Vb2 60° IVa 58° IIIa VIb VIa 56° North IVb Sea 54° VIIc VIIb VIIa Irish Sea 52° IVc VIIg VIIf Celtic VIIj Sea VIId 50° VIIk English Channel VIIe VIIh 48° (b) 20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40° 50° 60° 70° 80° Spitzbergen I IIb Barents Greenland Sea Sea XIVa 70° IIa Va Norwegian Sea Iceland Faroe Is 60° 50° 7 2. Tag types 2 T A G TYPES The different types of tag utilised by Cefas for tagging Early attempts to monitor in detail the horizontal demersal fish can broadly be classified as conventional movements of individual fish by tagging involved releasing and electronic. A wide range of different conventional tags a fish with an acoustic transmitter attached, and then (Figure 2.1) have been used to tag a variety of species, and tracking the signal using ship-board equipment. More the tags are often specific to particular types of fish (Table recent Cefas studies on small-scale local movements 2.1, overleaf). Petersen discs are primarily used for flatfish of cod in the North Sea have used acoustic tags in and elasmobranchs, plastic flags for roundfish and T-bar conjunction with a fixed “listening” buoy that transmits tags for bass. Conventional tags are uniquely numbered data via satellite to the laboratory. and are prefixed by the letter “E” to denote “English” in A different approach to obtaining continuous data on accordance with ICES international naming conventions, fish movements was developed in the 1990s in the form and continue to be used in conjunction with electronic tags of DSTs that store continuous data such as water pressure that are not necessarily numbered uniquely. and temperature. DSTs are either attached to the fish Data from conventional tagging give only the positions externally, or internally placed, depending on the species at release and recapture of the individual fish and cannot and on the size of the tag. The data are downloaded from tell us where the fish have been in the intervening period. the tag when the fish is recaptured. The data from the tag It is only by examining the recapture positions of large are then combined with models of water movements and numbers of tagged fish throughout the year that the tidal cycles to infer the movements of the fish between extent of the movements and distribution of fish in the release and recapture. To date, DSTs that transmit population can be inferred. Much useful information has positional data directly via satellite have only been used been obtained this way, although results can be biased if for basking sharks because of their large size (Sims et al., the fish move to areas where there is too little fishing to 2003). generate recaptures. Figure 2.1. The principal types of conventional tags used by Cefas: (a) Petersen disc, (b) soft plastic flag, (c) hard plastic flags, (a) (b) (d) T-bar. (c) (d) G TYPES A 2 T Table 2.1. The percentage of fish of different species tagged with the four general types of conventional tag (based on fish in the Tagged Fish Database). Species grouping Common name Petersen disc Soft plastic flag Hard plastic flag T-bar Flatfish Brill 100% Turbot 100% Plaice 97% 3% Dab 100% Lemon sole 100% Sole 94% 3% 3% Sand sole 100% Total 96% 1% 3% Roundfish Cod 1% 65% 33% Haddock 49% 46% 5% Whiting 15% 79% 6% Saithe 49% 51% Total 2% 61% 36% Elasmobranchs Spurdog 100% Lesser spotted dogfish 100% Nurse hound 100% Smooth hound 100% Starry smooth hound 100% Tope 100% Skates and rays 100% Total 100% Other species Monkfish 100% Grey gurnard 100% Bass 2% 28% 70% Total 2% 28% 70% Cefas has been a world-leader in the development and for example large female plaice. Progressive miniaturization application of DSTs, and examples developed by Cefas has extended their use to smaller individuals and a wider are shown in Figure 2.2. The longevity and miniaturization range of species. The latest version of these tags records and of these DSTs is continuing to be developed by Cefas stores data on light intensity, temperature and water pressure, technologists and scientists. The size of the first generations providing an opportunity to investigate how fish behaviour of DSTs limited their use to relatively large fish of a species, varies in response to changes in ambient conditions. 2 T A G TYPES Figure 2.2. The different types of data storage tags (DST) used by Cefas, showing the development towards a smaller size. Mk1 (1993) Mk3 (1997) Mk4 (2003) Mk5 Cefas G5 (2006) 10 3. Data archiving RCHIVING A A T A 3 D biological information recorded at release and subsequent 3.1 Paper records and biological material recapture. Table 3.1 provides an overview of the main collections tables and fields associated with the database. Paper records relating to current and historical tagging The pivotal feature of the database is the Experiment studies contain release and recapture details, all of which Index Table, which provides a near complete history of fish are indexed by an experiment reference.
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