Off the coast of Kent in England, tagged sharks are intended to help answer an open question: how important are the shallow coastal waters for the birth and development of young animals? The Sharks of Kent project combines the work of Adonis Blue Environmental and Kent Wildlife Trust with the experience of local anglers and charter-boat crews. A BBC report published on 14 September 2026 follows the data collection at sea.
31 sharks recorded, eleven tagged
During the trip accompanied by the BBC, 31 smoothhounds were caught, measured and weighed. Eleven were large enough to receive a tag. The sharks were then released. These figures describe that single trip, not the total population off Kent.
Project leader Max Renton suspects that these waters play an important role as a birth and nursery area. The research aims to provide stronger evidence for that hypothesis. The report does not yet establish a scientifically confirmed shark nursery.
What a tag can reveal
The project’s feasibility study describes Floy tags: externally visible plastic tags with an individual identifier. The method relies on capture, tagging, release and subsequent recapture. Recording the location and body measurements again allows researchers to track changes in location and growth. These identification tags do not provide a continuous swimming route; they are not satellite transmitters.
The study, produced in 2025 through the Coastal Explorer Internship Programme, brought together more than 8,000 records of 20 shark and ray species. This is a body of records, not a count of 8,000 different animals. The authors acknowledge clear limitations: some species and places have been studied much more frequently than others. This uneven coverage cannot provide reliable population trends.
Anglers as research partners
According to a project update from Kent Wildlife Trust, practical work has already begun in Ramsgate. Shore anglers and charter-boat crews were offered theory sessions and exercises on board. The Trust reported five trained anglers, two participating charter boats and more than 30 tagged smoothhounds at that stage of the project. Expansion to Dover is planned for later in the year.
Participants are intended to help close gaps in knowledge about the animals’ abundance, distribution and movements. The Trust links this data collection to the long-term goal of improving conservation and management of local shark and ray species. Participation is based on training and supervised practice.
Geopark application still pending
The BBC report also places the shark research in the context of the transboundary Cross-Channel Geopark. Its hoped-for UNESCO recognition has not yet been granted: according to Kent Downs National Landscape, the application was submitted in November 2025, with a decision expected in spring 2027. For the shark research, the immediate priority remains gathering enough repeatable observations to assess the importance of these coastal waters more accurately.