SEASONAL speed limits for boats could be imposed around Land's End to prevent fast moving crafts from colliding with basking sharks.

The National Oceanography Centre in Southampton has been awarded a £15,000 grant to study the behaviour of basking sharks and harbour porpoises around southwest UK.

The purpose of the study is to determine if basking sharks' feeding is linked to certain tide times, as is currently suspected.

Research

The agency undertook a successful pilot study in the area last month and in summer 2010 and 2011 they will be carrying out further research from the watch point at Land's End.

Dr Russell Wynn, a senior marine scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, says there have been several reports of basking sharks being hit by leisure boats, causing severe injuries.

He said: "Local fishermen fish there all of the time with small boats at very slow speed and they have no impact on the sharks, but the big leisure crafts that come through at very high speed do.

"We have had quite a lot of sharks with damaged fins and marks across their backs from propellers."

The grant will be used for fieldwork over the next two years, investigating how both species take advantage of particular sea floor and oceanographic features to maximise foraging success.

The results will then be fed back to Natural England and other agencies responsible for determining optimal locations for Marine Conservation Zones in the region.

The results will also contribute to the SeaWatch SW project, which has been monitoring marine wildlife over the Runnelstone Reef off the Land's End peninsula since 2007.

Dr Wynn continued: "Initial results indicate that basking sharks aggregate at the surface in certain areas of the Runnelstone Reef at specific tidal states.

"If we discover an area where these sharks surface regularly because of plankton, there could be seasonal speed restrictions."

Two devices called C-PODs will be installed in the Runnelstone Reef area to assess how tidal state influences the appearance of porpoises, and to allow comparison of visual and acoustic monitoring methods for this species.