Closed areas · By nation
17 closures in Northern Irish waters, watched from space. Together they cover 720 km².
Closures in Northern Irish waters are made by DAERA (the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs) under Northern Ireland regulations — inshore fishing regulations, marine conservation zone rules and scallop enhancement site provisions.
Several of these areas are in the loughs and the Irish Sea scallop grounds, where dredging and static-gear fishing happen close together, so the gear a vessel was actually using decides whether anything prohibited occurred.
Northern Ireland also has something most of the UK does not: scallop enhancement sites, where scallops are seeded on the seabed and the area is closed to protect the stock while it grows. These are closures with a commercial purpose rather than a purely conservation one, and they can open and close as the stock is worked.
The Irish Sea is fished by vessels from several jurisdictions, so a boat inside a Northern Irish closure may be registered in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland or the Isle of Man — which is one reason establishing what gear a particular vessel actually uses is hand research rather than a lookup.
A case is a reason to look, not a verdict — most are examined and resolved. Every case is judged on three independent factors and nothing reads CAUGHT until all three are strong and a person has reviewed it. How a case is made.
By rule: No-take zones Bottom-towed gear Trawling Dredging All seabed fishing
By nation: Scotland England Wales Isle of Man Jersey
The full A–Z of all closures · Download the closure dataset · See live cases on the map