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Project title

The Northeast Atlantic Marine Tracking Network

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

National Parks & Wildlife Services (NPWS) - Marine Institute

Lead Organisation

Loughs Agency

Lead Applicant

Sarah McLean

Project Abstract

The North East Atlantic (NEA) region, which encompasses the Irish Sea, the English Channel and the North Sea, is one of Europe's most productive fishing areas and has vast strategic and economic importance. It is also one of the most vulnerable large marine ecosystems in the world, in particular with regards to climate change, with rapid warming being observed in this region over the last 50 years1. This region is one of the areas most impacted by human activities on the planet2. For centuries, the NEA has been a site of intense fishing for highly valued species such as Atlantic cod, Atlantic bluefin tuna, and Atlantic mackerel3. Fishing in this region remains highly active for cod, mackerel, herring, and many other species and the basins are replete with shipping activity as well as offshore wind farm development, oil drilling, and sand extraction. These anthropogenic activities overlap with highly productive and biodiverse marine areas used by a wide range of resident and migratory species from lobsters to sharks and whales. The NEA and its rich biodiversity need to be prioritised for conservation and implementation of evidence-based adaptive management guiding fisheries policy and marine spatial planning. Managing this large area in light of the climate and biodiversity crises is immensely challenging, largely because data on the distribution and ecology of many key species in the NEA are lacking and the data that exist are decreasingly relevant as these distributions are highly dynamic and rapidly changing. There is a fantastic opportunity to leverage the last decade of development in aquatic tracking technology and build on previous investments by the EU in telemetry infrastructure, research and training to deploy compatible, agile and smart systems to track the marine species of the NEA, provide updated data on the distribution of animals and address the needs of management and conservation under the auspices of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. NorTrack will coordinate tagging and tracking efforts at a basin scale, leverage interoperable infrastructure while developing data sharing and archiving platforms to expand coverage and capacity for revealing the ecology of NEA species. This project is predicated on the framework of coordinating animal tracking efforts in Europe as proposed by Abecasis et al.4 and represents a major step forward in the European Tracking Network’s (ETN) strategy for deployment of key compatible infrastructure in Europe.

Grant Approved

�286,000.00

Research Hub

Natural Environment

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

02/01/2024

Initial Projected Completion Date

01/01/2027