The Scottish Government was notified about the presence of flapper skate eggs in the Inner Sound of Skye in late 2019.
Tritonia was contracted by NatureScot to provide diving support to recover eggs so they could be genetically sampled in 2020 and additionally imaged and modelled the nursery site to deliver fine scale habitat data. Based on this and other corroborating data, the Red Rocks and Longay emergency MPA was designated in March 2021.
Following this, Tritonia were again contracted by NatureScot, this time to provide ROV surveys over an extended area, focussing on the glacial moraines identified by BGS as suitable egg laying habitat from MCA multibeam sonar data. Over 2 days in September 2021, Tritonia collected over 7 line kilometres of high resolution seabed imagery across 17 sites, and recorded 1031 egg cases. This data, in conjunction with the genetic information collected during the previous year’s dives, and a series of drop-down video surveys, led to both a publication and the extension of the emergency MPA into permanent MPA on the 9th of February 2023.
In October 2024, Tritonia divers revisited Red Rocks and Longay MPA once again to deploy an acoustic tracking array to monitor skate tagged by NatureScot. 6 acoustic receivers were deployed throughout the MPA to offer coverage of the entire area. An ROV was then used to create Georeferenced 3D Photogrammetry plots around the location of the receivers to build up a better understanding of the wider local environment.
The receivers were retrieved and replaced in March 2025 and it is hoped that NatureScot will be able to tag more adult female skate, and extend the duration of the monitoring program to 12 months. This data will show when and where within the MPA the adult skate visit. The G3DP plots will be repeated to gain a temporal understanding of egg laying behaviour, and different metrics explored to try and better describe the preferred nursery habitat.
