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.

For more information about this rating please visit: http://www.cornwallgoodseafoodguide.org.uk/fish-guide/sandy-ray.php

For more information about this rating please visit: http://www.cornwallgoodseafoodguide.org.uk/fish-guide/sandy-ray.php

For more information about this rating please visit: http://www.cornwallgoodseafoodguide.org.uk/fish-guide/sandy-ray.php