Petit Taurons - Acció Stellaris

(Small Sharks - Stellaris Action) 

 

Save The Med is currently working on a pilot conservation project called Petits taurons - Acció Stellaris, which aims to help recover the population of Balearic nursehound sharks (Scyliorhinus stellaris).

 

The project focuses on the nursehound shark, a small shark species which is classified as endangered in the Llibre Vermell dels Peixos de les Balears (The Red Book of Balearic Fish) and is protected in the marine reserves of the Balearic Islands. It is being conducted together with the Balearic government, Marilles Foundation, Palma Aquarium Foundation, Petites Illes del Mediterrani, Mallorca Preservation Foundation, Shark Med, Cabrera National Park Visitors' Centre and local fishermen.

 

The participation of professional fishermen and the fisheries association is essential for the success of the project, whose long term objective is to replicate the initiative in order to protect other threatened sharks and rays in the Balearic sea.

 

 

ACTIONS

 

• Successful breeding of nursehound sharks in a controlled, artificial environment.

 

• When they attain an appropriate size, all bred sharks are released (including those which were accidentally caught by fishermen and donated to the project to enable the breeding programme).

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• All sharks have been tagged with external tags to allow their identification, should they be captured by fishermen.​

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• Internal acoustic tags have been implanted in some of the sharks to study their movement patterns. This is essential to understand how the sharks use their marine habitat and their presence in marine reserves over time.

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• In collaboration with the organisations participating in the project and the Balearic fishing sector, we developed an education programme to highlight the ecological importance of sharks in the Balearic sea, and the threats they face.

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• Save the Med scientists presented Sharks and Stories of Nature - Why They Will Never Seize to Amaze Us (“Els taurons: històries naturals o per què mai no ens deixaran de sorprendre”) at a conference at the Balearic Museum of Natural Sciences (Sóller).