Saving Seafood

New shark research targets a nearly endangered species

September 16, 2020 — They are some of the most iconic and unique-looking creatures in our oceans. While some may think they look a bit odd, one thing researchers agree on is that little is known about hammerhead sharks. Many of the 10 hammerhead shark species are severely overfished worldwide for their fins and in need of urgent protection to prevent their extinction.

To learn more about a declining hammerhead  that is data poor but in need of conservation efforts, a team of researchers from Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center (SOSF SRC) and Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), Fisher Finder Adventures, the University of Rhode Island and University of Oxford (UK), embarked on a study to determine the migration patterns of smooth hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna zygaena) in the western Atlantic Ocean. This shark, which can grow up to 14-feet (400 cm), remains one of the least understood of the large hammerhead species because of the difficulty in reliably finding smooth hammerheads to allow scientific study.

To learn about smooth hammerhead behavior, the research team satellite tagged juvenile hammerhead sharks off the US Mid-Atlantic coast and then tracked the sharks for up to 15 months. The sharks were fitted with fin-mounted satellite tags that reported the sharks’ movements in near real time via a satellite link to the researchers.

“Getting long-term tracks was instrumental in identifying not only clear seasonal travel patterns, but importantly, also the times and areas where the sharks were resident in between their migrations,” said Ryan Logan, Ph.D. student at NSU’s GHRI and SOSF SRC, and first author of the newly published research. “This study provides the first high resolution, long term view of the movement behaviors and habitats used by smooth hammerhead sharks—key information for targeting specific areas and times for management action to help build back this depleted species.”

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Artificial Reefs Take on a Towering Presence as Havens for Marine Predators

September 10, 2020 — The following was released by Duke University:

Acting like high-rise timeshares in the sea, shipwrecks and other artificial reefs can support dense populations of sharks, mackerels, barracudas, jacks and other large migratory marine predators essential to ocean health, according to a new study at 30 sites along the North Carolina coast.

Predator densities were up to five times larger at the 14 artificial reefs surveyed in the study than at the 16 nearby natural reefs that also were surveyed

Shipwrecks, especially those that rose between 4 and 10 meters up into the water column, were by far the fishes’ favorite. At some sites, they supported predator densities up to 11 times larger than natural reefs or low-profile artificial reefs made of concrete.

“These finding tell us two important things. One is that artificial reefs can support large predators, potentially supplementing natural reefs if the design and placement of the artificial reefs are strategic,” said Avery Paxton, research associate with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) in Beaufort, N.C., who led the study.

“The second thing it tells us is that when it comes to designing artificial reefs, there may be such a thing as a height advantage. We observed more fast-moving predators that live and hunt in the water column at the taller reefs in our study,” she said.

Climate change, pollution, development and other stresses have accelerated the decline of natural reef ecosystems across much of the world’s oceans in recent years, forcing large predators who formerly fed in the water column around the reefs to venture outside their normal migratory routes and native ranges in search of suitable alternatives.

Because these predators help maintain healthy and sustainable populations of species lower in the food web, providing suitable habitat for them as expediently as possible is critical, said Brian Silliman, Rachel Carson Distinguished Professor of Marine Conservation Biology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, who collaborated on the study.

Read the full release here

International Crime Ring That Trafficked in Shark Fins Is Dismantled, U.S. Says

September 8, 2020 — Shark fin soup, considered a delicacy in some countries, has long fueled demand for illegally harvested fins. But federal authorities in Georgia announced this week that they had dismantled at least one source for the ingredient: a multimillion-dollar organization they described as an international money laundering, drug trafficking and illegal wildlife trade ring.

A dozen people, including Terry Xing Zhao Wu, 45, of Burlingame, Calif., and two businesses on opposite ends of the country face multiple charges, including fraud and money laundering, for their roles in what the authorities called the “Wu transnational criminal organization,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia said in a statement on Thursday.

“United with our partner agencies, we have shut down an operation that fed a seemingly insatiable overseas appetite for illegally traded wildlife, and seized ill-gotten assets derived from that despicable criminal enterprise,” Bobby L. Christine, the U.S. attorney for the district, said in the statement.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Marijuana, money laundering, and shark fin conspiracy busted in Southport

August 31, 2020 — What do money laundering, pounds of marijuana and the illegal shark fin trade have in common?

According to federal authorities, the answer is Mark Leon Harrison of Southport.

Federal authorities have charged 12 people, including Harrison, with being part of a money-laundering criminal conspiracy that distributed marijuana in the United States and shark fins in Hong Kong.

This week several federal agencies raided a local seafood wholesaler in connection to the case. Officials close to the business tell News 13 that they were allowing Harrison to store shark fins at their location believing that his operation was legitimate.

They are not implicated in this case or named in the indictment.

According to US Department of Justice news release, Harrison was convicted of violating federal law in 2009 for dealing in shark fins.

Read the full story at My Panhandle

The Dark Side of Being a Female Shark Researcher

August 27, 2020 — I was 21 years old when I encountered the place where sharks and television intersect. It was my first research internship, working with a famous shark scientist I had long admired but only just met. My second week, I was on a boat with a film crew, chumming for sharks in the background while the senior scientist dispensed expertise in the foreground. At one point, the film crew suggested I sit next to my hero on camera and repeat the prompt: “So, [Dr. Hero], why did you become a shark scientist?”

For the beautiful green-eyed assistants, of course,” he replied, gesturing at me. I froze, silent, a nervous half-smile on my face.

Don’t worry,” a member of the film crew assured me afterward. “We won’t use it.” I felt a wash of relief and gratitude. It was years before I thought to wonder why I’d felt I was the one who would have looked bad if they had.

This isn’t the worst experience I’ve had as a woman in shark science, or even in the top 10. It barely makes my list at all. I remember it mainly for how small and ashamed it made me feel in the first moments of my career as a scientist; for the way his joke told me clearly who I was to him, and how he thought I fit into the story.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Are All U.S. Sharks Overfished?

August 10, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The world’s oceans are home to around 500 species of sharks. With so many species, it’s difficult to talk about the status of shark stocks overall. Regardless of the species, federal laws and regulations work to ensure that shark fisheries in the United States are healthy going into the future.

Read the facts below to learn more about what it means to be overfished and how we sustainably manage our shark fisheries.

1. U.S. law requires that shark fishing rules foster long-term biological and economic sustainability.

Fishery management in U.S. federal waters is governed primarily by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. First passed in 1976, the act requires that all fishery management plans meet 10 National Standards. That means the approximately 50 species of sharks managed in federal waters are fished under rules designed to:

  • Prevent overfishing
  • Rebuild overfished stocks
  • Increase long-term economic and social benefits of fisheries
  • Ensure a safe and sustainable seafood supply

Gulf of Mexico blacktip sharks are a good example of these rules at work. A popular food fish, blacktip sharks experienced a slight population decline in the 1990s. We established a quota specifically for this population in 2015. That combined with retention limits tied to other commercially valuable species contributed to a higher population today than the target level set by scientists.

Learn more about U.S. fisheries management

Understand why U.S.-caught sharks are a sustainable food choice

2. The terms “overfished” and “threatened” mean different things.

It’s a common misconception that overfished species are at risk of extinction. But the categories of overfished and overfishing are not directly related to threatened and endangered designations under the Endangered Species Act.

To understand the difference, it helps to know another term: maximum sustainable yield. This is the largest catch level that a species can sustain over a long period of time. If a stock is declared overfished, that means its numbers have fallen too low to produce its maximum sustainable yield. An overfished status doesn’t say anything directly about whether the species is endangered or likely to become endangered.

NOAA Fisheries is dedicated to rebuilding overfished stocks. Of the 43 shark stocks managed in the Atlantic Ocean, six are overfished. We have put rebuilding plans in place for each of these with strict catch limits based on the best available science. These limits are closely monitored and enforced.

Learn more about efforts to rebuild sandbar shark populations

Learn more about how retention limits help us sustainably manage shark fisheries

3. Our largest shark fisheries target healthy stocks.

The vast majority of sharks harvested in the United States are species with above-target population levels. In the Atlantic, for example, 94 percent of all U.S. shark landings in 2018—including bycatch—were of five species, which are neither overfished nor subject to overfishing:

  • Spiny dogfish shark
  • Smooth dogfish shark
  • Gulf of Mexico blacktip shark
  • Atlantic sharpnose shark
  • Finetooth shark

Two of these—spiny dogfish and Gulf of Mexico blacktip—have actually experienced population growth over recent decades.

Learn more about how spiny dogfish have benefited from sustainable management

Read the full release here

BOSTON HERALD: Feds offer more protections to seals than humans

August 4, 2020 — Maine’s first shark-caused human fatality came as a shock to residents and vacationers alike, but the odds of that occurring in Massachusetts waters increase virtually daily, thanks to conservation efforts that have swelled both seal and shark populations.

Authorities have confirmed that a 63-year-old woman from New York City was killed by a great white shark on Monday while swimming with her daughter off Harpswell, Maine’s Bailey Island.

Julie Dimperio Holowach became the first known person to die from a shark attack in Maine’s history, Patrick Keliher, the state’s Marine Patrol Commissioner, said at a Tuesday press conference.

Holowach, wearing a wetsuit, was swimming with her daughter about 20 yards from the shore when she was attacked. Thankfully her daughter escaped injury.

Read the full story at The Boston Herald

Finding more sharks off Maine’s coast could change our relationship with the ocean

July 31, 2020 — Three days after a great white killed a swimmer off Bailey Island in Harpswell, officers from the Maine Marine Patrol continued to scour coastal waters for sharks by land and by sea.

If they find a great white shark, they won’t kill it. Instead, state officials mostly seek information to document the presence of sharks and alert coastal communities.

Scientists and researchers also hope to learn more information about the species, saying that photos and reports of sharks and seals killed by sharks are helpful to them. Those can be shared with their local marine patrol officer, including as much specific information as possible.

“They tell us what species the shark is biting, where and when that’s happening, and the potential size and shape of the shark based on bite wounds,” Greg Skomal, a shark expert from Massachusetts said of the photos of seals attacked by sharks. “That is very useful information. We can start to piece together the predatory behavior of white sharks.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

NICK WHITNEY AND GREG SKOMAL: Facts, but no easy answers, around shark bites in New England

July 31, 2020 — A terrible tragedy took place in the waters off Maine this past Monday when a woman was fatally injured by a bite from a white shark. As shark scientists, we follow these incidents closely and try to learn whatever we can, but we fully realize that data and analyses are of little comfort to all those affected.

We also know that part of our job as scientists is to communicate the facts to the public as clearly as possible: This was the first-ever shark-related fatality in Maine’s history. There were only two fatalities from sharks in the world in 2019. Globally, shark bites on humans were lower than average in 2018 and 2019, and this trend appears to be continuing in 2020, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Given the number of people who enter the water every year, shark bites are rare (64 bites worldwide in 2019), and the vast majority of people who are bitten survive.

Those are the numbers, but other facts around shark attacks are much more difficult to assess: Why did this specific incident happen? What brought the shark so close to shore? What attracted it to the pair of swimmers? Why did it bite? The reality is that such incidents are so rare that the single biggest factor is probably chance.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe