A FREE mobile app is being used to determine the population of the endangered flapper skates around Scotland's coasts – thanks to their unique patterns.
The flapper skate is a species of fish belonging to the elasmobranch/shark family. They enjoy deep muddy habitats where they eat prawns, smaller skates and sharks.
The SkateSpotter app is now being used to get a clear picture of how the flapper skate populations are faring around Scottish coastlines.
The new app is available now on the Google Play store and the App Store on Android and IOS devices.
The SkateSpotter mobile app builds on the success of the Online Flapper Skate Database, which began when charter angler skipper Ronnie Campbell sent 400 digital photos of flapper skates to the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in 2018.
Seven years later, SkateSpotter, curated by NatureScot with contributions by even more anglers, contains more than 4000 photos of more than 2500 individual Flapper Skates recognisable by their distinctive spot patterns matched with the help of AI.
NatureScot’s elasmobranch specialist Jane Dodd said: “We encourage anglers, divers, fishermen and marine surveyors from all over Scotland to download the SkateSpotter app and become citizen scientists, helping us to understand and restore these amazing animals.
"An army of volunteers using SkateSpotter could generate a much more significant amount of data than a handful of scientists.
"Flapper skates are generally resident or show site fidelity (leaving and coming back to a site), but they do travel longer distances and we might be underestimating these because most of our SkateSpotter submissions come from specific areas. Imagine being the person who submits a photo of a skate from Shetland only to find the skate originated from Orkney or the west coast of Scotland!”
NatureScot is now asking anyone fishing, diving, angling or walking on the beach to take a photo of any Flapper Skate they see and report it on the app along with its gender and location.
Older photos may also be used as the app recognises the date and time the photo was taken.
Once submitted to SkateSpotter, AI either matches it to a photo already in the database or adds the skate in the photo as a new individual.
Contributors to the app will then be updated about “their” skate if it is reported again.
Steven Benjamins of SAMS said: “Most of the data in SkateSpotter is from flapper skate angling in the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area (MPA) because that’s where most of our contributing skippers are based, with some photos from Orkney and Shetland, the Mull of Galloway and Ireland.
"With the addition of AI to help us match photos, it was time for an app to make it easier for people from all over Scotland to contribute photos of skate and hopefully help us further understand the longer distance movements of these amazing fish.”
The data from SkateSpotter has already proven valuable. It was used by scientists at Marine Directorate in Aberdeen to model the population of Flapper Skate in the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area last year.
This MPA spans 286 square miles and includes the waters of Loch Sunart, the Sound of Mull, the Firth of Lorne and the Sound of Jura.
The model showed that flapper skate are recovering faster inside this MPA than outside.
