I am a fisher

The Scottish Entanglement Alliance (SEA) is a partnership of fishing, research, academic and NGO groups, working to together to better understand whale and basking shark entanglement issues in Scottish fisheries. SEA has been working closely with the Scottish inshore fishing industry to provide a co-ordinated, comprehensive monitoring and engagement programme to better understand the scale and impact of marine animal entanglements in our waters, and work towards developing strategies to reduce this threat.

SEA has been running trials of negatively buoyant rope in the Nephrops, crab and lobster creel fisheries, firstly in the Inner Sound and south Skye area, and more recently around the whole Scottish coast, to see if this change, which would remove the loops of rope between creels which can entangle whales and basking sharks, would be practical for fishermen. The project is a bottom-up, collaborative partnership with the fishermen involved, who have so far found negatively buoyant rope to be practical to use, in many cases preferring it to standard floating rope in groundlines. 

If you are interested in joining the trial, please email ellie.maclennan@glasgow.ac.uk 

Learn more about the trials in the 'Creel Deal' video below