The Pat Smith Database

The founding trustees of the Pat Smith Database have long recognised the vast pool of knowledge which exists within the recreational sea angling sector as although many charter skippers and sea anglers don’t recognise it, they are in fact “Experts by Experience”.

Recognising this, a little over two years ago, we took the decision to see if a way could be found to access these data and use it to better understand and protect sharks whilst improving recreational sea anglings positioning.

Our vision was to collect as much high quality historical data as possible then add each years catch and release stats to it. Today the database has in excess of 105,000 catch records from 1953 to date and consist of Blue, Porbeagle, Thresher and Mako sharks. This makes it the longest continuous timeline dataset in the world for sharks. It is also the largest shark catch database in the world apart from the one held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The Pat Smith Database commits to never share any contributors data without their prior permission and has adopted the guiding principle that the ownership of the data remains with the contributor meaning their data is simply on loan to the Pat Smith Database.

Contributor permission is sought before any analysis of the data is shared. In the event a contributor is not comfortable with the purpose of the analysis and what it is to be used for, they have the right to have their data removed from that particular analysis.

To date a number of scientific papers have been produced and one analysis of the data helped the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) to introduce a commercial total allowable catch limit (TAC) on Blue Sharks and in doing so their protection was increased.  

 The objects of the charity are to preserve and protect sharks to enable them to return to sustainable stock levels by:-

• Advancing research, conservation, awareness and understanding of sharks through the collection and analysis of recreational sea angler data;
• Improving shark welfare outcomes and conservation through increased recreational sea angler best practice awareness and education; 
• Facilitating communication, awareness and working partnerships between the scientific and recreational sea angling communities by facilitating practical experience work placements, cross discipline projects and information transfer between both communities.”