Marine Research and Conservation Foundation

17/09/2026

It’s World Manta Day 2026🥞🦈

Today we’re celebrating some of the ocean’s most iconic rays - mantas! From reef mantas (Mobula alfredi) and giant oceanic mantas (Mobula birostris) to the recently described Atlantic manta (Mobula yarae), these remarkable animals remind us both how much we’ve learned about the ocean and how much there is still to discover. M. yarae was only formally recognised as a distinct species in 2025, following years of collaborative research across the Atlantic.

This year’s theme is ‘Collaboration’ - particularly fitting for species that move across huge areas of ocean and cannot be effectively studied or protected by any one researcher, organisation or country alone. Sharing sightings, identification data, research methods and expertise helps us understand where manta rays go, how populations are connected and where they overlap with human pressures.

Manta and devil ray populations continue to face threats from targeted fisheries and bycatch, with their slow life histories making recovery particularly difficult when populations decline. Protecting them therefore relies on collaboration at every scale - from local communities and researchers to governments and international conservation agreements.

So today we’re celebrating not only these incredible rays, but the people and partnerships working around the world to better understand and protect them. 🫶

📸 gonzo_araujo

MARECO

15/09/2026

Join in the field to see how dive computers are being used to help study sharks and rays in often-overlooked temperate coastal waters🦈

A huge thank you to Suunto, Sea-Changers, the Alice McCosh Trust, Flying Sharks and Manx Shark Foundation for supporting our BRUVS research on the Isle of Man💙

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30/08/2026

Happy International Whale Shark Day 2026!🦈🌊

Today we’re celebrating the biggest fish in the sea - the incredible whale shark (Rhincodon typus).

Our work with whale sharks, alongside collaborators around the world, has helped us better understand their populations, movements and connectivity, as well as how human activities such as tourism and shipping can affect them. And while our understanding of the species has come a long way, whale sharks still need dedicated conservation attention.

The latest IUCN Red List reassessment (2025) reassessed the species as Endangered, with major ongoing threats including accidental capture in fisheries and collisions with vessels hindering their recovery. Illegal take and trade have not disappeared, and much of the mortality associated with fishing and shipping may never be recorded. Whale sharks caught in remote fisheries can go unreported, while those killed by large vessels sink to the bottom are unquantifable. This means that the threats we see may represent only part of the picture.

Continuing to understand where whale sharks go, how populations are connected and where they overlap with human pressures is therefore critical to ensuring that conservation measures reach the places where they are needed most!

📸 Dr. Gonzalo Araujo

16/07/2026

Field Diary - Western Irish Sea Mudbelt BRUVS🦈🎥

Last week, MARECO Researcher Gemma Scotts spent two days aboard FPV Barrule, completing 48 BRUV trials across the Western Irish Sea Mudbelt as part of collaborative research with DEFA and Manx Wildlife Trust.

Across the two days, we deployed 12 benthic and 12 pelagic BRUVS at mudbelt and shallower control sites, then repeated the survey the following day. The aim is to generate more evidence on the marine species using this area and help inform the review and development of spatial management measures in Manx waters.

Our particular interest is, of course, the sharks, skates and rays. The deeper waters around the Isle of Man remain relatively poorly studied, yet our footage is already reinforcing just how important this habitat may be for species such as the Endangered spurdog (Squalus acanthias).

When the weather turns, the next stage begins: reviewing many hours of footage, identifying species and understanding what the data may tell us about how these animals are using the mudbelt.

A huge thank you to the Barrule team for facilitating the research, to Sea-Changers and Flying Sharks | Marine animals transportation for supporting us with our BRUVS gear, and to Gemini Charter Boat Fishing Isle of Man and Pete Quirk for supplying our bait🎣

14/07/2026

🦈 It’s Shark Awareness Day 2026!

This year, we’re joining the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group in shining a spotlight on an often-overlooked group of rays: numbfishes (Narcinidae).

⚡️Our featured species is the Cortez numbfish (Narcine entemedor), a fascinating electric ray found along the eastern Pacific coast from Mexico to Peru. Like all numbfishes, it can produce a mild numbing electric shock to defend itself and detect prey hidden beneath the seabed.

🎣 Despite their remarkable biology, numbfishes receive very little conservation attention. Many species are poorly studied, rarely recorded and frequently caught as bycatch in demersal trawls and coastal fisheries. Alarmingly, nearly half of all assessed numbfish species are threatened with extinction!

🌍 Sharks, skates and rays come in an incredible diversity of shapes and sizes. While iconic species often capture the headlines, many lesser-known species play equally important roles in healthy marine ecosystems and deserve our attention too⚡🦈

📸 Dr. Gonzalo Araujo

30/06/2026

MARECO welcomes new legal protection for common thresher sharks in Manx waters🦈🇮🇲

We are pleased to see the common thresher shark added to Schedule 5 of the Wildlife Act 1990, making it an offence to deliberately catch, harm or kill the species in Manx waters.

This follows the species’ inclusion on Appendix I of the Convention on Migratory Species in March 2026, recognising the need for stronger international protection for this vulnerable, highly migratory shark species.

We were pleased to play a small part in this process by providing comments to DEFA in support of stronger protection for thresher sharks and we recognise the work of all those involved in helping bring the legislation forward👏

This is an important step, but it is also part of a much wider conversation about shark, skate and ray conservation. While thresher sharks now have specific legal protection, other elasmobranch species around the Island remain vulnerable to fishing pressure, bycatch, poor reporting, and wider environmental change.

Clear, species-specific protections help raise awareness and support safe handling and release when protected species are encountered. They also underline why local data collection is so important. Through our ongoing work with local partners, we hope to help build a clearer picture of the shark, skate and ray species found in Manx waters, helping to inform future research and long-term conservation efforts.

📸 ©️ Chelsea Bishop, Biodiversity Research Institute

23/06/2026

BLUE SHARK SEASON IS UNDERWAY IN THE UK🦈🛰️🎣🧲

Over the coming months, we’ll be back on the water continuing our research to better understand blue shark movements, habitat use, and their role in the open ocean ecosystems.

Our partnerships with blue shark swim-with operators are central to this work. Together, we are helping to support the development of a sustainable blue shark tourism industry, while also collecting valuable data on shark encounters.

Using operator logbook data, we investigate how factors such as environmental conditions influence blue shark occurrence and abundance. Operators also play a key role in facilitating our research activities, including satellite tagging, allowing us to better understand the movements and behaviour of these highly migratory sharks.

Each summer, blue sharks return to our waters as part of a remarkable trans-Atlantic migration. The individuals we encounter are predominantly juvenile and sub-adult females, although mature adults and pups are occasionally sighted. As one of the ocean’s most wide-ranging shark species, blue sharks connect ecosystems across vast distances, making them an important species for understanding pelagic ocean health.

We’re incredibly fortunate to study these iconic animals in UK waters and look forward to sharing updates and discoveries from the field throughout the season.

📸 Sam Matthews

15/06/2026

15/06/2026

🦈 How do you attach a tag to the world’s largest fish?

Tracking whale sharks is essential for understanding their movements, habitat use, and conservation needs - but attaching electronic tags that stay in place and collect high-quality data is no easy task.

📢 A new collaborative paper led by Freya Womersley brought together the experiences of whale shark researchers from around the world to evaluate clamp-based tagging systems and identify current best practices. The study highlights how tag design, placement, and deployment methods can influence both data quality and animal welfare.

By sharing lessons learned across projects and regions, we hope to improve future whale shark telemetry studies and support more effective conservation of this Endangered species.

🔗 Read the paper here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40317-026-00462-4

09/06/2026

🚨New Shark Science🚨

A new study led by describes a novel threat-like display in a nursehound shark (Scyliorhinus stellaris) in response to a snorkeler in Cornwall, UK.

Here, this catshark can be seen displaying:
a) depressed pectoral fins
b) arched/hunch posture
c) jaw-gaping
d) repeated turning behaviour towards snorkeller

The combination of these behaviours indicate an agonistic threat display. Similar threat displays have been well documented from larger shark species, particularly the Carcharhiniformes, but never before for a species of Scyliorhinidae.

This study builds on the existing body of literature regarding threat displays in shark species. We also hope to highlight the behaviour of small sharks to other water users who may be able to document similar examples.

Link to paper here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/AARJJMXYFGMD4B2HJUGX?target=10.1111/jfb.70528

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