Saving Seafood

As shark numbers plummet, nations seek ban on devastatingly effective gear

November 28, 2022 — Famed undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau had a favorite shark: the oceanic whitetip, or Carcharhinus longimanus. He said they were the most dangerous of all sharks, more so than the great white (Carcharodon carcharias).

Some researchers believe the species used to be one of the world’s most abundant vertebrates longer than 6 feet (1.8 meters).

Today, however, the animal is one step away from extinction, pushed to the brink by overfishing.

While sharks are often pulled up accidentally by boats hunting other fish, especially tuna, many vessels target them intentionally, hoping to harvest their fins, meat, and, sometimes, their teeth and internal organs. Such vessels often make use of special tools known as wire leaders and shark lines, whose use is minimally regulated by the multilateral bodies that govern international fishing grounds.

Now, those devices may finally face a reckoning.

In a bid to save the oceanic whitetip, the U.S. and Canada have asked the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), which governs tuna fisheries in those waters, to prohibit the use of wire leaders and shark lines.

The WCPFC could vote on the proposal at its annual meeting, to be held next week in Da Nang, Vietnam.

Read the full article at Mongabay

U.S. House Passes Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act

November 25, 2019 — The U.S. House has passed the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, H.R. 737, led by U.S. Reps. Gregorio Sablan (D-NM) and Michael McCaul (R-TX).

The act prohibits the import, export, possession, trade and distribution of shark fins or products containing shark fins, and it was passed by a margin of 310 to 107. U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) also introduced a companion bill that the Senate Commerce Committee has already approved.

The act of shark finning and possession of shark fins aboard a vessel is currently prohibited in U.S. waters under the 2010 Shark Conservation Act, but the law does not stop the domestic trade in their parts.

Read the full story at the Maritime Executive

Harvest of shark species to be cut to avoid overfishing

May 15, 2019 — Federal regulators say there will be a reduction this year in the harvest of a species of shark that is subject to commercial fishing.

Fishermen catch spiny dogfish from Maine to North Carolina on the East Coast for use as food, though there is a limited market for the shark in the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says this year’s quota for the dogfish will be a little more than 20 million pounds, which is slightly less than fishermen have harvested in most recent years.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

New Jersey shark fin ban bill: Assembly to vote today on measure to protect sharks

March 25, 2019 — The New Jersey Assembly will vote on a bill today that will prohibit the selling, trading, distribution or possession of any shark fin that has been separated from a shark prior to its lawful landing.

The bill passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee last Monday after already having passed the Senate. If it clears the assembly, it will go to Gov. Murphy to sign into law.

Assemblyman John Armato D-Northfield, one of the bill’s primary sponsor told the Asbury Park Press they’re trying to “get out in front of” shark finning.

Fishing industry members here say the bill will hurt local fishermen not involved in the illegal trade and punishes the wrong people.

“It’s a clear attempt to discourage the industry from participating in sustainable shark fisheries. The industry is monitored, regulated, observed, managed under rigorous scrutiny and this legislation could care less,” Greg DiDomenico, president of the Garden State Seafood Association, said.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

New Jersey shark fin ban bill punishes wrong people

March 18, 2019 — A New Jersey assembly committee will vote on a bill Monday that would prohibit the selling, trading, distribution or possession of any shark fin that has been separated from a shark prior to its lawful landing.

The bill is part of a larger national and international movement to crack down on illegal shark finning, but fishing industry members here say this particular bill will also hurt local fishermen not involved in the illegal trade.

While the shark fin bill doesn’t make it illegal for fisherman to have shark fins that were “lawfully-obtained in a manner consistent with licenses and permits,” it puts the burden of proof on the person to demonstrate the fins weren’t separated from the shark prior to lawful landing.

Jim Hutchinson Jr., the managing editor of “The Fisherman” magazine, said the bill will result in unnecessary penalties for fishermen who catch a legal shark and remove the fins in order to clean a shark, a routine practice by fishermen engaged in legal shark fishing.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

Scientists Search for the Most Dangerous Places to Be a Shark

November 20, 2017 — Sharks may be top predators in the ocean, but they’re no match for human activity. People kill between 63 million and 273 million sharks per year—from deaths due to the shark-fin trade to creatures caught as bycatch of vessels seeking other creatures.

But saving sharks is no easy feat. There are around 400 species of sharks in the world and there is still much more to learn about these elusive beasts, including their populations, feeding areas, birthing grounds and more.

That’s where the marine conservation group Oceana steps in. In September, 2016, Oceana debuted an online data platform called Global Fishing Watch. The system uses signals broadcast from boats to identify all the ships at sea in hopes of protecting our marine menagerie. An algorithm combs though billions of these signals to map the paths of vessels and determine which ships are actively fishing, Emily Matchar at Smithsonian.com reported earlier this year. That data can be used by researchers and conservationists to learn about the size, location and techniques used by the global fishing fleet—even identify possible illegal fishing methods.

Read the full story at Smithsonian Magazine

Oceana hopes shark study will help reduce bycatches

November 17, 2017 — Between 63 million and 273m sharks are caught and killed every year, often as unintentional bycatch victims, the NGO Oceana said. But the conservation group hopes the use of technology demonstrated in a study released Thursday will help reduce that number, maybe leading to emergency hot spot fishing area closures or gear changes.

For more than three months in 2016, between June and September, Neil Hammerschlag, a professor at the University of Miami, and Austin Gallagher, a researcher at Beneath the Waves, another NGO, monitored the movements in the Atlantic Ocean — from the New England to the North Carolina coasts — of 10 blue sharks tagged with satellite tracking devices, according to an executive summary of the report.

Two of the sharks came in close proximity — within one kilometer– of likely fishing activity on no less than four occasions, the researchers found when they overlaid their movements with that of the more than 60,000 vessels tracked by Global Fishing Watch.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Federal bill that could eliminate shark fin sales puts pressure on N.C. shark fishermen

November 6, 2017 — WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH, N.C. — The sale of shark fins may soon become illegal for coastal fisherman across the country. Legislation has been introduced to the House and Senate which would make it illegal to possess, buy, sell, or transport shark fins or any product containing shark fins.

Local fishermen make a portion of their income based off of the sale of shark fins and shark meat. Some perceive this aspect of their business to be at risk because of the potential regulation.

Shark fins, not shark finning 

Shark finning is the process of cutting the fin off of a live shark and discarding the remainder of the fish back into the ocean.

The practice was made illegal in the United States in 2000, with a loophole that was closed by 2009.

All shark species, with the exception of the smooth dogfish, are federally protected from finning under current legislation.

The sale of shark fins is legal in North Carolina. Fishermen are permitted to harvest and sell the fins of sharks once landed, not while the shark is still alive and at sea. This distinction is important to fishermen who oppose the inhumane act of shark finning.

“People are obviously horrified by the thought, and they should be,” said Jerry Schill, director of government relations for the North Carolina Fisheries Association.

Read the full story at the Port City Daily 

 

Misplaced NOAA footnote blamed for shark fin miscue

October 27, 2017 — US senator Cory Booker and others have been exaggerating the number of shark fin incidents in efforts to get legislation passed that would ban the practice, but it’s really a misplaced footnote that’s to blame, a fishing industry trade group says.

Booker, who has been suggested as a future possible presidential candidate, reported at a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, & Coast Guard, in early August, that he was “shocked to find out that, since 2010, [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)] has investigated over 500 incidences of alleged shark fining.”

But the New Jersey Democrat is wrong, according to a press release issued by Saving Seafood on Thursday, bringing the matter to light.

“While the information NOAA provided in response to senator Booker’s staff was not entirely inaccurate, a footnote was attached to the wrong sentence, making it possible for a reader to misinterpret the over-inclusive information provided,” the group said.“So, in the past 7.5 years, with an annual average of 2.6 million pounds landed sustainably from federally managed shark fisheries, there has been on average just 3.5 incidents per year resulting in charges,” Saving Seafood said.

“Shark finning is a reprehensible activity that has been outlawed in the U.S. and is opposed by participants in the sustainable U.S. shark fishery,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of the group. “Members of our coalition do not believe there is any need for Booker’s bill.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Study finds preliminary recovery of coastal sharks in southeast U.S.

February 28, 2017 — The following was released by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science:

A new analysis of population trends among coastal sharks of the southeast U.S. shows that all but one of the 7 species studied are increasing in abundance. The gains follow enactment of fishing regulations in the early 1990s after decades of declining shark numbers.

Scientists estimate that over-fishing of sharks along the southeast U.S. coast—which began in earnest following the release of Jaws in 1975 and continued through the 1980s—had reduced populations by 60-99% compared to un-fished levels. In response, NOAA’s National Marine Fishery Service in 1993 enacted a management plan for shark fisheries that limited both commercial and recreational landings.

Now, says lead scientist Cassidy Peterson, a graduate student at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, “We’ve shown that after over two decades of management measures, coastal shark populations are finally starting to recover and reclaim their position as top predators, or regulators of their ecosystem. Our research suggests we can begin to shift away from the era of  ‘doom and gloom’ regarding shark status in the United States.”

Joining Peterson in the study, published in the latest issue of Fish and Fisheries, were VIMS professor Rob Latour, Carolyn Belcher of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Dana Bethea and William Driggers III of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center, and Bryan Frazier of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

he researchers say their study based on modeling of combined data from 6 different scientific surveys conducted along the US East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico between 1975 and 2014 provides a more accurate and optimistic outlook than previous studies based on commercial fishery landings or surveys in a single location.

“Data from shark long-lining operations or shark bycatch can be suspect,” says Peterson, “because what looks like a change in abundance might instead be due to changes in fishing gear, target species, market forces, or other factors.”

Research surveys are scientifically designed to remove these biases. Survey crews purposefully sample a random grid rather than visiting known shark hot spots, and strive to use the exact same gear and methods year after year to ensure consistency in their results.

But even with these safeguards, data from a single survey often aren’t enough to capture population trends for an entire shark species, whose members may occupy diverse habitats and migrate to different and far-flung areas depending on age and sex.

Read the full report at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science