Shetland: Critically endangered ‘two metre-wide’ fish punctures fisherman’s boat - leaving ‘dozens of teeth’

Footage shows the moment a flapper skate rammed a fisherman’s boat off the coast of Shetland.

Paul Hutchison was fishing off Muckle Roe a few days ago when the skate approached his small inflatable boat.

Hutchison says the skate emerged from 25m to ram the boat several times, puncturing it and meaning he had to quickly return to the marina. He has shared an image of one of the skate’s teeth which he pulled from the tubes of his boat.

A tooth Paul Hutchison pulled from the inflatable tubes of his boat. | Paul Hutchison

The fish is believed to be a flapper skate, which is native to the Shetland waters. Female flapper skates can grow up to two metres wide, two and a half metres long and weigh just over 100kg. They are part of the shark family, with their flattened bodies evolved for scouring the seabed for food. The International Union for Conservation has listed the common skate, which includes flapper skates, as critically endangered.

Writing on social media, Hutchison said: “I could see it clear as day on the fishfinder and saw it go down, but coming straight back up. This time it hit the boat hard and I saw a splash of what I thought was its flippers. I could see on the fish finder it was coming up again from 25m, hit the boat under the bow and I saw a tail whip up in the air.

“I saw a skate chomping into the tubes of the rib, and with a big hiss I realised it was actually attacking the boat and had badly punctured it, so I had to make a hasty retreat back to the marina with a rapidly deflating boat. On inspection of the boat, it had bitten into the tubes about 6 times, leaving dozens of teeth.”

Hutchison added that his material had been passed to experts and warned against others trying to locate the critically endangered flapper skate.