A critically endangered giant of UK waters – the flapper skate – has been handed a conservation lifeline thanks to a new project that uses technology similar to facial recognition to help monitor the species.

Called Rate A Skate, the collaborative effort between NatureScot and The Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), using artificial intelligence to help marine biologists scan thousands of images of flapper skate, offering keen-eyed insight into the movement and health of individual creatures here in the UK’s waters.

Flapper skate can grow to nearly three metres long, making them one of the largest fish in the UK marine space, second only to the basking shark. These deep-dwelling creatures were once common around the British Isles but today exist only in small numbers, making them notoriously difficult to monitor.

The new project builds on an existing monitoring programme – SkateSpotter – which, over the last few years has managed to collate a database of 5,500 images, mainly taken by catch-and-release anglers and underwater camera traps. Most of those captured so far have been of skate located in Argyll where the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area was put in place for the species’ protection.

Rate A Skate will work by identifying individual skate by the unique pattern of spots on their backs. To date, matching skate has been done by eye – a task that become somewhat unmanageable for humans alone as the database expanded.

Now, thanks to SkateSpotter, marine biologists at SAMS have “more data on flapper skate than ever before”, helping them to gradually learn more about the species with each passing record.

Dr Steven Benjamins, a researchers at SAMS, said: “Citizen science is crucial for our work and we are grateful to anglers and community groups who send in photos of skate. These inform our research into their abundance, movement patterns, and the health of individuals.

“However, the project had become victim of its own success and we were unable to keep up with matching the number of individuals we had on record.”

The platform’s machine learning programme – its ‘neural network’ – has been devised with the ability to scan thousands of photos within minutes to present the most likely matches from a database. It’s a process that should go some lengths to help scientists quickly whittle down the sample images against which they can then compare their new one.

While flapper skate are generally resident in the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area in Argyll – or, at least show ‘site fidelity’ (the process of leaving the area only to return later) – there are a proportion of the population that are suspected to travel larger distances. Rate A Skate will, therefore, allow the team at SAMS to accept more images of skate from around Scotland – data which will prove to be crucial in the future development of increased marine protections.

Dr Jane Dodd of NatureScot, said: “This will help us put the MPA in context, and understand longer distance movements and connectivity of important sites for the skate such as egg nurseries.”

Citizens looking to participate in the conservation efforts of the flapper skate are encouraged to submit any photographic data to SkateSpotter.

The team at the Scottish Association for Marine Science has enjoyed a long and successful partnership with NatureScot to date, particularly when it comes to advances made in the conservation efforts surrounding flapper skate. 

Five years ago, the partnership achieved a world first when it successfully cared for and hatched a flapper skate in captivity. It’s thought to be the first time a flapper skate egg has been cared for from laying to hatching, allowing scientists to accurately confirm the gestation of the species for the first time. 

Despite its name, the common of flapper skate has been listed as critically endangered since 2006 as a result of overfishing. Flapper skate are described as extinct throughout much of their range with the west coast of Scotland providing one of the last remaining strongholds for the species. 

Anglers travel from all over the world to Oban in Argyll to fish for flapper skate on a strictly catch-and-release basis, contributing to vital research in the process. 

“Angling has increased our knowledge of flapper skate immensely,” said Dr Dodd. “Anlgers have been tagging skate and recording their recaptures for decades and their data helped justify the designation of the Loch Sunart o the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area for flapper skate.”

Female flapper skate grow to a maximum length of over 2 metres and they are estimated to live for around 50 years.

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