July 3, 2014 — The federal government today listed four key populations of scalloped hammerhead sharks under the Endangered Species Act.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for the first time in history, gave a shark species federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.
The scalloped hammerhead shark is considered globally endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The species is targeted primarily for its fins but is also killed as "by-catch" in fisheries targeting other species.
NOAA Fisheries listed scalloped hammerhead sharks inhabiting the Eastern Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Pacific Ocean as "endangered." The agency listed scalloped hammerhead sharks living in the Central and Southwest Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific as the less-serious status of "threatened." The federal agency declined to list scalloped hammerhead sharks that inhabit the Northwest Atlantic or Central Pacific.
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