Individual migratory patterns of starry smooth-hound, tope shark and common stingray tagged in the southern North Sea: Literature overview and data-report of tagging with miniPATs

In the North Sea region, many sharks and rays species have declined due to their vulnerability to fishing, pollution and changes in essential habitats. The role of the North Sea and Dutch coastal waters for rays and sharks remain relatively unknown. In this brief report, we focus on Starry Smooth-hound Mustelus asterias, Tope Shark Galeorhinus galeus, and Common Stingray Dasyatis pastinaca and the use of electronic tags to study their behaviour. This study is part of a larger project “Bridging knowledge gaps for sharks and rays” funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). An overview of the limited literature that is available on migratory patterns based on tagging of Starry Smooth-hound Mustelus asterias, Tope Shark Galeorhinus galeus, and Common Stingray Dasyatis pastinaca in the North Sea region is given. Furthermore, to gain more insight in the movement ecology of these elasmobranch species and what the role of Dutch coastal waters is during the completion of their life-cycle, 15 Starry Smooth-hound, 3 Tope Sharks and 5 Common Stingrays were caught, tagged with miniPAT pop-off satellite archival tags and released in the Oosterschelde during 2019-2022. The data of these tagged sharks and stingrays that was or will be transmitted via the ARGOS-satellites will become available for future analyses. Here the deployment data is provided.