15 June, 2007

EVIDENCE of a monkfish travelling 240 miles from Norway to Shetland has been discovered for the first time by a Lerwick registered fishing boat.

The Arcturus found a Norwegian tagged monkfish in its catch while fishing 15 miles north of the uninhabited Shetland isle of Balta, off Unst.

The fisherman, noticing the specific tag, passed the fish on to the NAFC Marine Centre in Scalloway for further investigation.

Popular belief had previously been that monkfish generally lie on the seabed and do not move any great distance.

NAFC Marine Centre fisheries biologist Dr Chevonne Laurenson said: "Over the last few years monkfish released in Shetland have travelled in a northerly direction and been recaptured from as far away as Norway, Faroe and Iceland.

"However, this is the first evidence of a tagged monkfish moving in the opposite direction."

She continued: "On contacting project partners in Norway, we discovered that the monkfish had been tagged off the Norwegian coast on 30 September 2003, 240 miles from where it was recaptured.

"Since tagging it has grown from 50 cm to 74 cm, equivalent to 6.6 cm per year. The growth rate was slower than expected, but if the monkfish had been a male, at that length, it would have been mature.

"It is normal for growth to slow after maturation as energy is diverted from growth to reproduction. Unfortunately, the fish had been gutted so the sex could not be determined."