Saving Seafood

Marco Rubio Brings Back the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act

April 30, 2021 — U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has brought back his proposal for the U.S. Commerce Department to increase regulation on the international shark trade.

Rubio has been pushing the “Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act” since 2018 and he reintroduced it this week.

The bill “would require any country that seeks to export shark, ray, and skate to the US to first demonstrate it has a system of science-based management to prevent overfishing and a prohibition on the practice of shark finning” and ensure other nations “must also receive certification from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that its fisheries management policies are on par with US practices” and modifies the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is co-sponsoring the bill. So are U.S. Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Bill Cassidy, R-La.

Read the full story at Florida Daily

Rubio, Colleagues Reintroduce Bill to Promote U.S. Shark Conservation as a Global Model of Sustainability

April 29, 2021 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.):

U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Rick Scott (R-FL), and Mike Braun (R-IN) reintroduced the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act, legislation that recognizes the sustainable and economically valuable fishing practices of U.S. shark fishermen and promotes U.S. standards for shark conservation and humane harvest abroad. The bill was first introduced by Rubio in April 2018 and was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in May 2018.

“Sharks play an important role in maintaining the health of ocean ecosystems and also benefit coastal economies via fishing, trade, and tourism,” Rubio said. “U.S. shark populations are growing as a result of years of sustainable management under our shark conservation and humane harvesting standards. This legislation would extend these successful standards to our global trade partners, helping to protect international shark populations and preserving the livelihoods of commercial fishermen in Florida, and other coastal states, who continue to fish in accordance with strong federal and state fisheries management laws.”

“Louisiana shark fishermen should not have to compete against those doing it illegally. This legislation protects these businesses,” Cassidy said. 

“In Florida, we know how important holding bad actors accountable is to responsible fisheries management and protecting Florida’s wildlife,” Scott said. “The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act will help to address the global problem of shark finning and protect Florida’s commercial fishermen who abide by current state and federal laws.”

“Conserving our fish and wildlife populations for future generations of fishermen and hunters is so important, and I’m proud to support Senator Rubio’s bill that supports the sustainable and humane management of shark populations and promotes U.S. standards for shark conservation to our trading partners,” Braun said.

Specifically, the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act would

  • Create a shark conservation and trade fairness certification for nations wishing to import shark products to the U.S.;
  • Prohibit the importation of shark products originating from any nation without a certification, and the possession of such products in the U.S. with limited exceptions for law enforcement, subsistence harvest, education, conservation, or scientific research;
  • Update the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act to reflect the U.S. commitment to promote international agreements that encourage the adoption of shark conservation and management measures and measures to prevent shark finning that are consistent with the International Plan of Action for Conservation and Management of Sharks;
  • Direct the Secretary of Commerce to include rays and skates into the seafood traceability program to ensure that shark products are not smuggled into the U.S. falsely labeled as rays and skates, two closely related groups.

Key U.S. Pacific Fishery Council Takes Vital Step to Protect Oceanic Whitetip Sharks

April 27, 2021 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Wespac) took a major step forward at its March meeting by recommending the prohibition of wire leaders on the Hawaii deep-set longline tuna fishery in the western Pacific Ocean. Wire leaders, also known as steel trace, are used by vessels fishing for bigeye tuna, but when sharks are accidentally caught on the line, they are unable to free themselves and frequently die as bycatch. This is a problem for the oceanic whitetip shark, which is classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.  A switch to nylon, or monofilament, leaders, which are easier for sharks to bite through, would reduce mortality and help give this shark population a chance to recover.

In addition, the council recommended the development of a requirement to remove as much fishing line, or trailing gear, from an accidentally caught shark as possible—that is, to cut the line as close to the shark as possible before release. That would further protect sharks once freed from a longline. Council staff estimated that these two requirements would reduce mortality by 17% to 36%.

It’s now critical that the council finalize these much-needed decisions at its June meeting and that federal fishery managers implement them. The recommendations have wide support—including from the Hawaii Longline Association, which announced that its member fishing vessels would voluntarily ban wire leaders months before the council recommendation.

Read the full story at Pew Charitable Trusts

One Of Biden’s Biggest Climate Change Challenges? The Oceans

March 19, 2021 — A few years ago, marine biologist Kyle Van Houtan spotted an online video that he couldn’t quite believe. It showed a young great white shark, about five-feet long, swimming just off a pier in Central California.

“Our initial reaction was that it can’t be true,” Van Houtan says. “We know that they’re in Southern California and Mexico, not in Monterey.”

When they’re young, white sharks typically live in the warm waters of Southern California, hundreds of miles from the cold, rough surf up north off Monterey.

Still, the shark in the video wouldn’t be the only one to appear. Since 2014, young white sharks have been arriving off Monterey in greater numbers.

The sharks were simply following the water temperatures they’re adapted to. The ocean was warmer, shifting the sharks’ habitat from where it’s normally found. Similar shifts are being seen around the world, just one of the ways that climate change is hitting the oceans hard.

Ocean scientists say the Biden Administration is taking office at a critical time. Sea levels are rising, fish are migrating away from where they’re normally caught, and the water itself is becoming more acidic as it absorbs carbon dioxide that humans emit.

While the administration has appointed climate change advisors throughout the federal government, a key role remains unfilled: the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency that oversees everything from fisheries policy to marine sanctuaries.

Read the full story at NPR

 

Misinformation, polarization impeding environmental protection efforts

March 5, 2021 — A group of researchers, spanning six universities and three continents, are sounding the alarm on a topic not often discussed in the context of conservation—misinformation.

In a recent study published in FACETS, the team, including Dr. Adam Ford, Canada Research Chair in Wildlife Restoration Ecology, and Dr. Clayton Lamb, Liber Ero Fellow, both based in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, explain how the actions of some scientists,  and the public are eroding efforts to conserve biodiversity.

“Outcomes, not intentions, should be the basis for how we view success in conservation,” says Dr. Ford.

Dr. Lamb points to other cases including mass petitions against shark finning in Florida, although the practice was previously banned there; planting a species of milkweed in an attempt to save monarch butterflies, only to ultimately harm them; and closer to home, the sharing of misinformation in regards to the British Columbia grizzly bear hunt.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

World-renowned Mote shark scientist retires

March 5, 2021 — The following was released by Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium:

After more than 40 years of shark science with profound conservation impacts, Dr. Robert (Bob) Hueter retired from his role as Director of Mote Marine Laboratory’s Center for Shark Research in December 2020, becoming a Mote Senior Scientist Emeritus.

Hueter’s shark research has spanned six of Earth’s seven continents, and lately he is best known for trailblazing work in Cuba—including satellite-tagging the first sharks in Cuban waters—and the U.S., where he has combined his roles as Mote Senior Scientist and Chief Scientist for the nonprofit organization OCEARCH to lead groundbreaking studies of great white sharks.

Hueter’s research has produced more than 200 published scientific articles and reports, and his career exemplifies Mote’s mission—conducting world-class research and translating it to benefit the oceans and society. He has testified before the U.S. Congress three times on shark research and conservation and has spearheaded landmark developments—including promotion of the first shark fisheries management regulations in Florida in 1991, and the first international shark fisheries management and conservation conference, held at Mote in 1993, where the first U.S. federal shark fisheries management plan was announced.

Over the years, the exceptional research led by Hueter and his team has included: sweeping surveys of sharks along Florida’s Gulf Coast to document long-term changes in their populations; a satellite-tagging study of record scope with whale sharks, Earth’s largest fish species, that documented their migrations spanning over 5,000 miles; through collaborative expeditions with OCEARCH and partners, successfully tracking 70 great white sharks with satellite transmitters and proposing a model of their life history and migrations in the Northwest Atlantic; leading field research identifying nursery areas for 16 shark species in the Gulf of Mexico; and groundbreaking studies on intensive shark fishing in Mexico’s Gulf of California that documented 160,000 sharks and rays in the fishery over years. He also played leading roles in: providing the first scientific documentation of a shark nursery area in Cuban waters, for the lemon shark; gaining new insights on sharks caught in northwest Cuba’s open-water longline fishery; documenting shark bycatch to support development of fisheries electronic monitoring systems in the Gulf of Mexico; contributing data and expertise to massive, global studies of shark-fishery interactions, reef shark conservation and declines; and more.

Read the full release here

MSC urged to raise the bar on shark-finning

February 17, 2021 — A new report by a cadre of scientists and members of environmental NGOs is calling on the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to take further action to combat the practice of shark-finning.

The report, which analyzed the MSC’s policies relating to shark-finning, asserts that the organization should adopt a “fins naturally attached” (FNA) policy in order to curtail – and hopefully eliminate – shark-finning. The council is failing its zero-tolerance policy on shark-finning, a press release from the organizations behind the report said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New technology expected to play a key role in shark research

December 29, 2020 — There was precious little good news in 2020, but at least, for the second year in a row, we didn’t see any shark attacks on the Cape.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Maine, where a great white shark killed a New York City woman while she was swimming in Harpswell in July. It was the first such attack in the state’s recorded history.

Cape Cod’s first shark attack was in 2012 — the first fatality in Massachusetts in 82 years occurred in Wellfleet in 2018.

The Maine death, along with an increase in the frequency of sightings and detection of tagged white sharks along the New England coastline, helped spur the foundation of the regional New England White Shark Research Consortium this month with the goal of sharing information and research.

With the largest population of great white sharks on the East Coast, Cape Cod is home to cutting-edge research intended to protect the species as well as the millions of beachgoers who come to the peninsula each summer for fun in the surf. While much of that research effort still lies in finding and observing these large marine predators the old-fashioned way with spotter planes and boats, new technologies give scientists hope they will unlock the mysteries of behavior and life history that will allow sharks and humans to coexist.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

KRISTEN MINOGUE: Shark tags reveal an endangered species returning to natural refuge

December 28, 2020 — In the coastal waters of the mid-Atlantic, an endangered shark is making a comeback. Led by former Smithsonian postdoc Chuck Bangley, scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) tagged and tracked nearly two dozen dusky sharks over the course of a year as part of the Smithsonian’s Movement of Life Initiative. They discovered that a protected zone put in place 15 years ago is paying off — but with climate change, it may need some tweaking.

Dusky sharks are what Bangley calls “the archetypal big, gray shark.” Born 3 feet long, as babies, they’re already big enough to prey on some other shark species. But they’re slow-growing. It can take 16 to 29 years for them to mature. If their populations take a hit, recovery can take decades.

An endangered species, duskies aren’t very common in Delaware waters. When they do surface, they’re easily mistaken for sandbar sharks. But in this new study, the Smithsonian tracked dusky sharks swimming past the southern tip of Delaware on their migrations up and down the Atlantic. For conservationists, it’s a sign that protections put in place are slowly starting to pay off.

The sharks’ numbers plummeted in the 1980s and 1990s, when well-intentioned managers offered sharks as an “alternative fishery,” while other stocks, like cod, were collapsing. The overfishing that followed wiped out anywhere from 65% to 90% of the Chesapeake’s duskies, said Bangley, now a postdoc at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Managers banned all intentional dusky shark fishing in 2000. Five years later, they created the Mid-Atlantic Shark Closed Area along the North Carolina coast. The zone prohibits bottom longline fishing, which can ensnare dusky sharks, for seven months of the year.

Read the full story at Delaware State News

Hawaii Fishing Fleet Is Changing Gear To Help Protect Endangered Sharks

December 7, 2020 — The Hawaii Longline Association announced this week it’s making key changes to its fleet’s fishing equipment to help the imperiled oceanic whitetip shark stave off extinction.

Specifically, by July, crews aboard the fleet’s 140 or so vessels plan to replace the steel wire fishing leaders at the ends of their fishing lines with ones made from less-lethal nylon, or monofilament, according to HLA Executive Director Eric Kingma.

The move should at least somewhat help the endangered and overfished sharks, local fishing officials and industry watchdogs say, because they can bite through the nylon more easily and free themselves when they’re inadvertently caught.

It’s a much-welcomed change to aid a species that was abundant in the central and western Pacific Ocean before commercial fishing and demand for shark fins decimated their numbers, ocean conservationists say.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat