Saving Seafood

Fishing crew charged with shark fin trafficking

December 12, 2018 — The owner and officers of a Japanese-flagged fishing vessel were charged in federal court Tuesday with aiding and abetting the trafficking and smuggling of nearly 1,000 shark fins into and out of Hawaii last month.

During a year-long tuna-fishing expedition, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat —the M.V. Kyoshin Maru No. 20 — allegedly harvested fins from about 300 sharks, at least some species of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

One of those species, the oceanic white tip shark, has declined in population by about 80-95 percent across the Pacific Ocean since the mid-1990s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, the crew cut the shark fins off, “in some instances while the sharks were stunned but still alive, and discarded the finless carcasses into the ocean,” all under the supervision of the captain and at the direction of the ship’s officers.

The illegally-harvested fins were discovered in the luggage of 10 Indonesian nationals, who had been employed as fishermen on the boat. The Indonesian fishermen had been dropped off from the fishing boat at a port in Honolulu and were intending to catch a flight to Jakarta.

Read the full story at The Garden Island

Bill banning shark fin sales advances in New Jersey legislature

November 27, 2018 — A bill banning the sale of shark fins in New Jersey waters has advanced in the state legislature.

On Monday, the Senate Energy and Environment Committee unanimously passed bill S2905, which prohibits the possession and sale of shark fins. Sponsored by Assemblyman Troy Singleton (D., Burlington), the bill is meant to prevent New Jersey from contributing to the international shark fin trade.

Shark finning, seen in some Asian countries, is a practice in which fishermen pull sharks out of the water, slice their fins off and discard them back into the sea alive but unable to swim. The fins are used to make shark-fin soup, a Chinese delicacy.

“The goal is not to interfere with legal shark fishing but to not participate in the importation of shark fins that disregard where or how the fins were obtained,” said Alea Couch, policy coordinator for the assemblyman.

Environmental groups say it has contributed to a decline in the shark population over last few decades. According to estimates published in the Marine Policy Journal, 100 million sharks are killed each year.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

War on sharks: How rogue fishing fleets plunder the ocean’s top predator

August 8, 2018 –It was billed as the biggest poaching bust in history, a monumental win for conservationists.

An Ecuadorean Navy patrol vessel, guided by advanced radar and a small plane, bore down on a ship the length of a football field making a beeline across the Galapagos Marine Reserve—probably the most fiercely protected waters in the world. Filling the freighter’s freezers: 150 tons of dead , most of them endangered and illegal to sell.

Only small pieces off those 6,000 carcasses were actually of much value. The fins.

Shark fins are a delicacy in China, the feature ingredient in an expensive soup served at banquets and fancy restaurants. At peak, dried fins have sold for more per pound than heroin. That price, coupled with high demand from a booming Chinese economy, has created a brutally efficient industry capable of strip-mining sharks from the sea.

With fishing lines over 75 miles long, commercial shark fishermen catch hundreds of sharks in a single try. Tens of millions of sharks are fished from the world’s oceans every year, and some scientists have estimated that number to be over 100 million.

“The amount of sharks that we are pulling in all over the world, it seems insane that there should be any left at all,” said shark conservationist Ben Harris, director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Panama Chapter.

Shark poaching happens everywhere, from Florida to French Polynesia, but it’s the Pacific Ocean off Central America that has become ground zero in the battle to protect sharks. Even here—by many measures the richest shark waters on the planet—biologists fear relentless overfishing could spiral populations of the most sought-after species into irreversible collapse and take the entire marine food chain down with them.

The big question has become which will disappear first—sharks or the shark fin trade.

“It’s a very close race right now,” said Harris, who has spent decades in small speedboats chasing shark poachers out of Central American marine reserves.

This two-year investigation first published by “Reveal,” a radio show and podcast supported by the Center for Investigative Reporting, found that despite stricter protections enacted by many coastal countries, international trade in shark products remains strong in the Eastern Pacific. Reporting in port towns across five countries from Ecuador to El Salvador showed in some cases new laws intended to curb the slaughter of sharks appear to have had the opposite effect.

Read the full story from the Miami Herald at PHYS.org

Scientists Urge Congress to Support Ongoing Shark Research

July 19, 2018 — Fishermen and beachgoers alike have long viewed sharks with something less than admiration, but advances in technology have proven they are deeply valuable, scientists told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Yet that value could be lost if climate change and overfishing continue to threaten the predator and its habitat.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee heard testimony from several scientists about the value of shark research during a Wednesday morning session.

Among them was Dr. Robert Hueter, of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, who said he’s studied sharks for 40 years and that his most satisfying moments have come when he’s gotten to watch people shift from vilifying sharks to appreciating them.

“Now I see people on the coast watching sharks with tags swim by,” Hueter said. “They don’t want to kill them but instead, they’re rooting them on and sometimes, they even [figuratively] adopt them. They understand the shark isn’t looking to eat people but they’re doing what they have done for millions of years. We’re winning the battle [for conservation] and activism is spreading, so it’s very exciting.”

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Senators share their fascination with sharks at hearing

July 19, 2018 — Lawmakers on Wednesday held a hearing on sharks to examine new research, conservation techniques and ways to improve understanding of the unique animals.

The hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, titled simply “SHARKS!,” featured experts in shark research who told lawmakers how their discoveries are benefiting the medical and tech fields.

“Americans have been fascinated by sharks,” said Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.). “Aquariums and other educational programs have helped to demystify sharks and our initial fear has turned into fandom.”

The hearing also comes just before the start of The Discovery Channel’s 30th annual “Shark Week,” which is set to begin July 22.

Dr. Robert Hueter, the senior scientist and director of the Center for Shark Research at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., credited the annual television event with leading to a better understanding of the complex creatures.

Americans are now “rooting the shark on,” Hueter said.

“They understand that that shark is not really threatening them, they’re not looking for people, that they’re there trying to do their thing and they’ve been there for millions of years,” Hueter said.

Read the full story at The Hill

Chinese tariffs could harm US shark fishing sector

July 5, 2018 — The small US shark fishing industry, which sells fins and meat to China, could be shut out of that market due to increased tariffs, the New York Times reported.

The Chinese government is set to soon impose 25% tariffs on a wide range of US seafood exports in retaliation for tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration including on shark fins and canned and preserved fins.

These tariffs could shut out US shark harvesters out of their main market and drive Chinese buyers elsewhere.

“My sense is that’s going to decrease demand for sustainably fished U.S. shark fins, and increase demand from countries with less sustainable fisheries,” said Shaun Gehan, an attorney for Sustainable Shark Alliance, which represents shark fishermen and dealers. “It’ll just be a hardship for the small fish houses and the fishermen that participate in this fishery.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

China tariffs could hurt remaining US shark fin business

June 29, 2018 — A new set of Chinese tariffs on U.S. seafood including items made from shark fins could jeopardize what remains of the American industry for the controversial products.

China announced the 25 percent tariffs in mid-June that are expected to apply to exported American goods such as lobster and salmon beginning in July. They also will apply to whole or cut shark fins, as well as shark fin products that are canned or preserved, according to a Chinese government website.

The U.S. has long banned “shark finning,” a practice long reviled by animal welfare groups that involves removing the fin from a shark and discarding the animal at sea. It is still legal to remove and sell the fin of a legally harvested shark after it is brought to land.

The steep tariffs, which could turn away business from U.S. exporters, might have implications for American shark fishermen and processors. China is one of the biggest buyers of shark fins, as the product is used to make shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy.

“My sense is that’s going to decrease demand for sustainably fished U.S. shark fins, and increase demand from countries with less sustainable fisheries,” said Shaun Gehan, an attorney for Sustainable Shark Alliance, which represents shark fishermen and dealers. “It’ll just be a hardship for the small fish houses and the fishermen that participate in this fishery.”

Hundreds of fishermen in the U.S. seek numerous species of shark for their meat and fins in a tightly regulated fishery. The fins represent about a quarter of the value of a shark, and fins that U.S. fishermen harvest are often shipped to Asia for processing.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the East Oregonian

Read a letter from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren on the tariffs’ effect on the lobster industry here.

 

Coast Guard busts Keys fishing vessel with shark fins

June 20, 2018 — A Coast Guard crew from Station Islamorada stopped a commercial fishing vessel in the Upper Keys Tuesday morning that was loaded with dismembered sharks and 11 fins.

Federal law has prohibited the practice of shark finning — where the fin is cut off the shark and the rest of the body discarded — since 2000.

The 40-foot vessel, the Miss Shell, was stopped near South Sound Creek, which is near John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Murray. The initial stop was for improper display of navigational lights, according to a Coast Guard press release.

Crew from a Coast Guard patrol boat, which included an officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, boarded the Miss Shell and found the fins and shark carcasses.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has taken over the investigation into the case. There is no immediate information about arrests.

Read the full story at the Florida Keys News

 

Coastal Conservation Association Supports Legislative Effort To Eliminate Shark Finning

June 8, 2018 — The following was released by the Coastal Conservation Association:

Coastal Conservation Association has joined forces with leaders in the marine science world to support the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act (HR 5248) as part of the ongoing effort to eliminate the vile practice of shark finning around the world. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida, would require any nation seeking to export shark, ray or skate products to the U.S. to receive certification from NOAA that it has management and conservation policies in place comparable to those in the U.S. Furthermore, the exporter must show that there is no overfishing of those species and that a prohibition on shark finning is enacted and enforced.

“We at OCEARCH applaud the support of CCA for this bill, which provides an effective, sensible and science-based solution to end shark finning around the world,” said Chris Fisher, Founding Chairman of OCEARCH. “As an advocate for bringing together diverse stakeholders, OCEARCH is pleased to see CCA join the growing coalition of organizations in support of this bill. With this support, CCA is demonstrating their leadership in promoting the conservation of our precious marine resources in a data-driven, centrist way.”

While the U.S. has policies in place against shark-finning, in which sharks captured with industrial commercial gear like trawls and longlines have just the fins removed before being thrown overboard to a slow death, many countries still turn a blind eye to the practice. The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act is one of a number of pieces of legislation seeking to close any loopholes that may allow the practice to continue.

“As an apex predator, sharks play a critical role in maintaining the health of the marine ecosystem and we simply cannot afford to allow this egregious and wasteful method of fishing to continue,” said Patrick Murray, president of CCA. “Research shows that sharks travel the globe and need global solutions to ensure their health and sustainability. We greatly appreciate the work of Rep. Webster, Rep. Corey Booker of New Jersey, who is sponsoring similar legislation, and others who are making a difference in this fight.”

Read the full release here

Mississippi Commercial Fishermen Support Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act

June 7, 2018 — The following was released by Mississippi Commercial Fishermen United:

The Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United, Inc. is glad to express strong support for H.R. 5248 “The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act” introduced by Representative Webster (R-FL). The bill offers a common sense approach to addressing sustainable shark fisheries and ensures nations engaged in the importation of shark products to the United States are held to similar standards. The bill would require a certification for each nation engaged in the importation of shark products. Import nations engaged in practices of finning sharks at sea would not be certifiable under this legislation since it has been illegal in the U.S. for quite some time.

We applaud Rep. Webster and the currently 21 bipartisan co-sponsors of this bill for their support because it does not seek to harm U.S. commercial fishermen operating under sustainably managed fisheries and provides meaningful solutions to addressing inequities in global fisheries management. The Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United encourages Mississippi’s congressional leadership to support this bill as well. Sharks deserve an increased level of protection and requiring import nations to adhere to similar standards that U.S. fisheries operate under is a great way to push the conservation of sharks forward. Additionally, we support language in the bill that would include skates and rays in the Seafood Import Monitoring program.

The Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United is pleased to join a growing list of supporters of the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act. The bill has already received the support of commercial shark fishermen, conservation groups such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Mote Marine Laboratory and over 62 prominent shark scientists. It should also be noted that these recommendations are consistent with the International Plan of Action for Conservation and Management of Sharks of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Senator Rubio also recently introduced a similar companion bill in the Senate in which we applaud and support.