Sandy ray

There is concern for the biomass of sandy ray in the Celtic Sea and West of Scotland and no concern for fishing pressure.Route 2 (data limited) scoring has been applied to this rating owing to the lack of reference points for fishing pressure and biomass. Sandy ray has a low resilience to fishing pressure.There is no information available for sandy ray biomass and therefore, there is concern for the biomass.Landings have fluctuated. In 2019 and 2020, they were the lowest in the available time series (36 tonnes in each year), however, they increased in 2021 to 52 tonnes. ICES advises that when the precautionary approach is applied, landings should be no more than 27 tonnes in each of the years 2023 and 2024. This is a decrease of 20% from the previous two years as the precautionary buffer has been applied. Landings in recent years have been in line with advice and only increased above the advice last year. Therefore, there is no concern for fishing pressure.The quality of ICES estimates of landings data for elasmobranchs has generally improved in recent years. Some of the landings data from this area attributed to sandy ray are considered to refer to small-eyed ray (which is known locally as "sandy ray"). Therefore, ICES reallocates official data for sandy ray to small-eyed ray in defined areas.Other areas of concern in this assessment include the lack of data, as the ICES survey only covers a small part of the stock area. There is also a lack of discard and survival rate data.

There is no management plan for skates and rays and the joint TAC has been deemed an unsuitable method for protecting individual species.There is no direct management plan for skates and rays in these waters. They are usually caught as bycatch in otter and beam trawl fisheries, which target finfish (including flatfish and gadoids).Skates and rays are managed under five regional quotas (called TACs) which are applied to a group of species, rather than individual skate and ray species. This includes cuckoo ray, thornback ray, blonde ray, spotted ray, and small-eyed ray (undulate ray has a separate TAC). This has been deemed as an unsuitable method for protecting individual species, but species-specific quotas may increase discarding. Alternatives to the current TAC system are being explored, which may include the possible introduction of individual TACs for key stocks.A high-survivability exemption to the Landings Obligation was provided for skates and rays in the Celtic Seas ecoregion. Any skates and rays that are discarded are required to be released immediately and below the sea surface. Other management methods being considered are fishing gear modifications, education, conservation measures (such as closed seasons during spawning times). Some protected areas have been designated in these waters but offshore areas are not sufficiently managed. There are no official minimum landing sizes except for some IFCAs, which, mandate a minimum landing size (40-45 cm disc width) in inshore waters in England and Wales.Fishermen off North Devon have a voluntary seasonal closed area over what they consider to be a nursery ground. Both the EU and UK have fishery management measures in place, which can include catch limits, targets for population sizes and fishing mortality, and controls on what fishing gear can be used and where. In the EU, compliance with regulations has been variable, and there are ongoing challenges with implementing some of them. There was a target for fishing to be at Maximum Sustainable Yield by 2020, but this was not achieved. The Landing Obligation (LO), an EU law that the UK has kept after Brexit, requires all quota fish to be landed, even if they are unwanted (over-quota or below minimum size). It aims to promote more selective fishing methods, reduce bycatch, and improve recording of everything that is caught, not just what is wanted. Compliance with the LO is generally poor and actual levels of discards are difficult to quantify using the current fisheries observer programme. UK administrations are in the process of replacing the landing obligation with country-specific Catching Policies.In the UK, it is too early to tell how effective management is, as the Fisheries Act only came into force in January 2021. The Act requires the development of Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs) (replacing EU Multi-Annual Plans). FMPs are currently in development, but the scope of them remains unclear. They have the potential to be very important tools for managing UK fisheries, although data limitations may delay them for some stocks. MCS is keen to see publicly available FMPs for all commercially exploited stocks, especially where stocks are depleted, that include:Targets for fishing pressure and biomass, and additional management when those targets are not being met, based on the best available scientific evidenceTimeframes for stock recoveryImproved data collection, transparency and accountability, supported by technologies such as Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM)Consideration of wider environmental impacts of the fishery

Otter trawling is likely to cause some damage to the seabed. Bycatch is moderate and may include vulnerable species.Sandy ray is a bycatch species which is caught in otter trawl and gillnet fisheries which target hake, anglerfish, and megrim.Otter trawls are not a very selective gear: the catch may include a large variety of species such as various soles, plaice, monkfish, haddock, cod, John Dory, red gurnard, horse mackerel, boar fish and grey gurnard, skates, rays and starry smooth-hound. Endangered, Threatened and Protected (ETP) species can occasionally be caught such as blue and flapper skate in offshore otter trawl fisheries but it is illegal to land these species.Discard rates of skates and rays vary dramatically (30-70%), depending on the marketability and management measures in place. For example, nearly all skates below 30 cm LT are discarded by English vessels. Bycatch can include juvenile skate as they can hatch from their egg cases at sizes of 10-20 cm LT and therefore, may be able to escape through the nets. Their survival rates upon discarding is extremely variable, depending on the fishing and handling methods used to capture them. Elasmobranchs have the potential for relatively high survival rates because they do not have swim bladders (and thereby are not as impacted by pressure changes), they can have thick and abrasive skins and thorns (which protect them) and some have spiracles and a buccal-pump respiratory which excrete a mucus, which allows the skate or ray to ventilate and acquire oxygen when out of the water. Inshore and coastal fisheries using trawls, longlines, gillnets and tangle nets generally show low at-vessel mortality. There are a lack of studies available on long-term skate and ray survival when they are released into the wild.Demersal trawls have contact with the seabed resulting in penetration and abrasion of habitat features. The impact of trawling on the seabed depends on the location and scale in which trawling occurs. For example, areas that are used to natural disturbance through tides and waves, are less sensitive to habitat impacts. Areas not used to mobile towed gears are typically more sensitive to trawling. Blonde rays inhabit offshore sandbanks and coastal shallows. They occur over sandy, mud and gravel substrates.There are Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in this area, some of which are designated to protect seabed features from damaging activities. This fishery overlaps with parts of these MPAs, but the proportion of the catch coming from these areas is expected to be relatively low in relation to the unit of assessment (i.e. less than 20% of the catch or effort), and so these impacts have not been assessed within the scale of this rating. Given the important role that MPAs have in recovering the health and function of our seas, MCS encourages the supply chain to identify if their specific sources are being caught from within MPAs. If sources are suspected of coming from within designated and managed MPAs, MCS advises businesses to establish if the fishing activity is operating legally inside a designated and managed MPA, and request evidence from the fishery or managing authority to demonstrate that the activity is not damaging to protected features or a threat to the conservation objectives of the site(s).To improve monitoring and reporting of fishing activity, MCS would like to see remote electronic monitoring (REM) with cameras implemented, used and enforced. To reduce the impacts of fishing on the marine environment we would like to see a just transition to the complete removal of bottom towed gear from offshore Marine Protected Areas designated to protect the seabed. We also want to see reduction and mitigation of environmental impacts including emissions and blue carbon habitat damage.

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