Irish Marine Sports Fish Tagging Programme Dataset

This is the dataset for shark, skates and rays caught, tagged and released by charter skippers and sea anglers for Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) (formerly Inland Fisheries Trust, then Central Fisheries Board). The dataset, relating to use of conventional tags, spans from 1970 to 2018. The fish capture and tagging location, as listed in the data table, is bound in the relevant ICES statistical sub rectangle (ices.dk/data/maps/Pages/ICES-statistical-rectangles.aspx). The individual rectangles measure 20' of longitude by 10' of latitude and are roughly square in shape, measuring approximately 10 nautical miles by 10 nautical miles (or 18x18 km) at 60°N. Where required capture locations were assigned, because for many fish (all species) point-specific co-ordinates were not provided by all taggers. Fish tagged in any named bay were assigned to a centroid within that bay, and those tagged by specific skippers were assigned a point location 5 km from their vessel’s port of departure. Tagging events are generally distributed around the Irish coast but some fish were tagged off the UK coast. An interactive map incorporating all the tagging (open data) can be accessed in the app hosted in IFI’s Open Data Hub.

The co-operation of all charter skippers and anglers involved in this long-term tagging programme is much appreciated

Field Name

Field Alias

Field Type

Field Description

TagCommonName

Common Name

Text

Common name of Tagged Fish

cdSpecies

Species Code

Text

Species three letter code

TagDate

Tag Date

Date

Tagging date

Tagyear

Tag Year

Short

Tagging year

cdICESSub

ICES Statistical SubRectangles

Text

ICES subcode for use as a proxy for exact location. 

TagEventID

Tag Event ID

Text

A unique ID for each tagging event as occasionally Tag Type Numbers were repeated.

TagTypeNum

Tag Type Num

Text

Tag Type and Number

TagType

Tag Type

Text

Type of Tag ie. D = Dart tag, J = Jumbo tag, P = Petersen disc tag

cdSpeciesLatin

Latin Name

Text

Latin Name

TaggerID

Tagger ID

Text

Pseudo-anonymized Tagger ID number