Oceana, the world’s largest international ocean conservation organization, is calling for the protection of the ocean’s top predators at the 17th Special Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in Paris, France, November 17 to 27. Specifically, Oceana is seeking protections for several vulnerable and overexploited species vital to maintaining healthy oceans, including sharks, bluefin tuna, swordfish and sea turtles.
“The demand for sharks and bluefin tuna is driving populations towards extinction,” said Dr. Michael Hirshfield, senior vice president for North America and chief scientist at Oceana. “The depletion of sharks and bluefin tuna is the result of decades of neglect by fisheries managers. Without immediate and proper international management, we will empty the oceans of these top predators and vastly change the oceans as we know them today.”
Each year, tens of millions of sharks are killed to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup throughout Asia, where a single fin can be sold for more than $1,300. Today, more than half of the highly migratory oceanic sharks are considered overexploited or depleted, and some shark populations have declined by as much as 99 percent. Despite this unacceptable situation, managers have all but ignored their responsibilities for these top predators in our oceans.
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