A fish blog.com

The small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) is not a common catch in Norwegian waters, but once in a while a shark get caught in a fishing net.

The pictures on this page show a small-spotted catshark caught in the southern part of Norway (near Egersund). The fisherman (Øivind Mong) was a bit surprised when he found eggs in the shark. Several egg-cases were found and each egg has “strings” attached to each corner (see picture below). These strings help the egg-casees to “hold on” to something on the bottom. It takes 5-11 months for the embryos to develop.

Thanks to Øivind Mong for the pictures.

The porbeagle shark is extremely vulnerable to over fishing. As most other sharks the porbeagle reproduces slowly and the stock in the Northeast Atlantic is now in a critical situation. The IUCN-World Conervation Union have the porbeagle on their Red List and they consider the population in the Northeast Atlantic as “critically endangered”.

ICES (The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) has recommended ending targeted fisheries for porbeagle in the Northeastern Atlantic. Sweden has already protected the porbeagle. Norway has fished porbeagle sharks for decades, but in the last 10 years the catches have dropped dramatically. The Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal affairs has decided to follow the recommendation from ICES.

A new (01.01.08) regulation for Norwegian fishermen forbid targeted fisheries for porbeagle sharks. The regulation allows vessels to land porbeagle sharks taken as bycatch. The Norwegian fishery for porbeagle (using long line) is then a part of the history.