Anglers are completing the annual three-day Sharkatag event on Friday, aimed at finding out what role the waters around Zeeland play in the life cycle of the shark species Starry Smooth-hound (Mustelus asterias).

Since 2009, more sharks have been spotted in the Zeeland waters, both adults and pups, and experts think the Oosterschelde may be the site of a shark spawning ground.

The anglers have gathered on a boat off the Zeeland coast to catch young sharks and tag them with a so-called floy tag which sends data to a satellite to monitor their whereabouts.

On the first day of the event, some 30 pups went for the shrimp bait. “The sharks are harmless. They have little flat teeth to eat shrimps and crabs. When you haul them up and you see the typical dorsal fin, you know you’ve caught a shark,”  Niels Brevé of anglers’ organisation Sportvisserij Nederland told broadcaster NOS.

After monitoring the sharks for the last 10 years, it is now clear that the adult sharks leave the area in the winter. The males go to Scotland and Norway while the females go to France. “They return here in summer, like swallows in spring,” Brevé said.

Every shark is also measured sexed and returned to the water. Over the last 13 years, the anglers have tagged over 5,000 sharks.

“A lot of people have no idea that sharks belong in the Netherlands,” Brevé said. We lost them for decades because of overfishing and now we are over the moon they’re back.”

Brevé is calling regulations to make sure sharks that are caught are put back into the sea. “They are here and we want to keep it that way,” he said.