We have records of stranded animals going back over 700 years, although 90% of them are since 1970. Several species are known to be subject to bycatch in pelagic (open ocean) trawls or inshore gill/tangle nets.

Cetacean strandings figures were lower during 2005 than for the previous four years. The reasons for this drop are unclear.

At first, this was put down to the UK Government's ban, in December 2004, on pelagic pair trawling for bass within 12 nautical miles of the coast. This seems unlikely because:

only UK vessels are affected by the ban and these comprise a very small part of the total pair trawling fishing effort.
cetacean strandings figures for 2006 are 68% higher than those for 2005.

Seal Strandings

Grey seal strandings have been recorded since 2000. Annual totals were similar between 2000 to 2004, but a marked increase was observed during 2005.

Many seal strandings occur at the end of the year and the total now in for 2007 was 70 - maintaining the large annual increase seen since 2004.