Cornish Biodiversity Network - Supporting Wildlife Recording
The descriptive text, below the map, is from the Cornish Red Data Book (2009). The map on this web page depicts the organisms distribution and shows the records made pre-2000 and those made since.
Habitat & Distribution
A very wide-ranging, oceanic-epipelagic shark present in all oceans. They normally
undertake a north to south migration in the North Atlantic and seasonally visit western British and Irish waters in the summer months, mainly July-October in Cornwall. In certain years they are quite frequent off the south coast of Cornwall where they are caught on bottom long-lines and in nets. Although the Blue Shark is amongst the most abundant, widespread, fecund and faster growing of the larger shark species, they are also one of the mostly heavily fished sharks in the world, mainly as bye-catch. This is almost certainly having an effect on its population size. It is listed on Annex I of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and is on the IUCN (2007) Red List as being Low Risk \endash near threatened. It is also on the UK List of Priority Species.
I.J. Bennallick, S. Board, C.N. French, P.A. Gainey, C. Neil, R. Parslow, A. Spalding and P.E. Tompsett. eds. 2009. Red Data Book for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. 2nd Edition.Croceago Press.
The Cornish Red Data Book Project was led by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Federation for Biological Recorders (CISFBR). The full text and species accounts (minus the maps) are available on the CISFBR website.