2025 has been an unusually busy year for entanglements so far, with four confirmed cases to date: Humpback whale, Invertote, NE Skye. This young 8m humpback whale was reported anchored to a fish farm drum by a 30mm rope around the head and pectoral fin on the morning of 30th It was successfully disentangled the […]

It’s been a busy start to the year for the Scottish Entanglement Alliance team, who recently hosted a series of 10 workshops across all inshore fisheries group regions of Scotland. We met with creel fishermen to hear their thoughts, concerns and questions around a transition to sinking rope, which we believe could reduce entanglement risk […]

Sinking rope workshops_February 2025 dates and locations

Detection and characterisation of derelict creel fleets to evaluate marine megafauna entanglement risk in Scottish waters – CreelMap Final Project Report. Read the full report here Summary Creel fisheries, using fleets of baited pots or ‘creels’ to catch Nephrops, lobsters and crabs, are an important component of the inshore, and to a lesser extent offshore, […]

Two recent examples of the ongoing issue of marine entanglements were reported to the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) team last week. The first was a 9.60m long female humpback whale which washed ashore in Granton, Edinburgh on the 29th September. This whale had several skin abrasions highly consistent with rope entanglements. A week […]

Last weekend we had a report of a stranding in Annat Bay on the Scoraig peninsula. A fisherman had reported it to @ullapoolseasavers earlier in the day, before they headed out to confirm the animal as juvenile male humpback whale. Members of the SMASS team headed out to the site of the stranding, aided by @ullapoolseasavers , @cal_major and @jamesappletonphotography. to investigate […]

Scotsman article, May 2023 Fishing News article, May 2023 Fishing News article, April 2022

We recently learnt that the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) have taken the decision to place creel-caught crabs and lobster from the west coast of Scotland on the ‘fish to avoid’ (red) list, in part due to concern over marine animal entanglement risk. Entanglement is a global problem in many fisheries, is not limited to crab […]

A ground-breaking project is helping reduce mammal, shark and turtle entanglement in creel fishing gear in Scottish waters.   Image credit: Graham Campbell Today sees the publication of a report on the first phase of the Scottish Entanglement Alliance (SEA) project, the first of its kind in the UK, which brings together commercial creel fishers, NatureScot, research […]

Last week the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Our Daily Planet hosted a dialogue on the progress made, and challenges still ahead, in Canada’s efforts to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, a species vulnerable to both entanglement and ship strikes and on the brink of extinction. In a bid to […]