Easter Egg Case Hunts

Volunteers joined Paul Castle the Highland Council North Sutherland Countryside Ranger on two organised skate and ray egg case hunts at Torrisdale Bay and Melvich Beach in Sutherland over the Easter weekend.

On Saturday 15th April volunteers helped find a total of seven spotted ray egg cases at Torrisdale Bay in north Sutherland. The second hunt at Melvich Beach on Sunday 16th April, saw seventeen volunteers help discover the egg cases of common skate, cuckoo ray and spotted ray along with many dog fish egg cases. The empty egg cases, commonly known as mermaids purses, are swept on to the beaches by the tide once the immature fish have developed and left the case.

The hunts were organised by Paul as part of the Great Eggcase Hunt, a project run by The Shark Trust. The project is using the data from the hunts to determine possible breeding areas for the skates and rays around the UK coastline and to hopefully protect the decreasing populations of these fascinating fish species.

Paul said: "The data collected during the hunts will be very useful to the Shark Trust particularly the finding of a common skate egg case, as this species is of particular concern. I would like to thank everyone who came along and took part in the hunts."

To keep with the Easter theme a chocolate Easter egg was the prize for the person who found most egg cases during the events.

Egg case identification leaflets are available from the Shark Trust and records of skate or ray egg cases are very welcome, see the website at www.sharktrust.org for further details.

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