July 29, 2020 — A bipartisan bill that would eliminate the use of drift gillnets to catch swordfish and thresher sharks in Pacific Ocean waters within five years passed the U.S. Senate last week.
Senate Bill 906 passed by voice vote in the chamber on Thursday, 23 July. It now heads to the U.S. House of Representatives, which has until the end of the year to consider the legislation.
September 28, 2018 — Ending years of controversy and debate, Gov. Jerry Brown late Thursday signed a new law phasing out the use of giant ocean fishing nets used to catch swordfish, but blamed for accidentally killing sea turtles, dolphins and other sea creatures.
The bill, SB 1017 by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Redondo Beach, requires the state to set up a program to buy back nets and fishing permits from commercial fishermen who work in the state’s drift gill net fishery.
The nets — giant nylon curtains that can stretch one mile long and extend 100 feet underwater — are used mostly by fishermen between San Diego and Big Sur. Although they are intended to catch swordfish, thresher shark and opah, studies have shown that they entangle dozens of other marine species, including whales, dolphins, sea lions and sea turtles, fish and sharks. Those animals, known as bycatch, are often thrown back overboard, injured or dead.
“There is no longer room in our oceans for any fishery that throws away more than it keeps,” said Susan Murray, deputy vice president for Oceana, an environmental group with offices in Monterey that pushed for the new law.
Read the full story at Mercury News
A new study suggests warming sea temperatures could result in smaller fish sizes.
August 22, 2017 — Warming temperatures and loss of oxygen in the sea will shrink hundreds of fish species—from tunas and groupers to salmon, thresher sharks, haddock and cod—even more than previously thought, a new study concludes.
Because warmer seas speed up their metabolisms, fish, squid and other water-breathing creatures will need to draw more oxygen from the ocean. At the same time, warming seas are already reducing the availability of oxygen in many parts of the sea.
A pair of University of British Columbia scientists argue that since the bodies of fish grow faster than their gills, these animals eventually will reach a point where they can’t get enough oxygen to sustain normal growth.
“What we found was that the body size of fish decreases by 20 to 30 percent for every 1 degree Celsius increase in water temperature,” says author William Cheung, director of science for the university’s Nippon Foundation—Nereus Program.
These changes, the scientists say, will have a profound impact on many marine food webs, upending predator-prey relationships in ways that are hard to predict.
“Lab experiments have shown that it’s always the large species that will become stressed first,” says lead author Daniel Pauly, a professor at the university’s Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries, and principal investigator for the Sea Around Us. “Small species have an advantage, respiration-wise.”
Still, while many scientists applaud the discovery, not all agree that Pauly’s and Cheung’s work supports their dramatic findings. The study was published today in the journal Global Change Biology.
October 4, 2016 — Known for its long whip-like tail, the threatened Thresher shark is among a number of marine species given extra protection at the Cites meeting.
Devil rays and Silky sharks have also been given additional safeguards.
These shark species have seen huge population falls over the past decades, due to the demands of the shark fin trade.
Devil rays are valued for the gill plates which are used in Chinese medicine.
Campaigners believe the safeguards under Cites will make a real difference to these species survival.
Few sharks protected
It’s estimated that around 100 million sharks of all types are killed in commercial fisheries – with their fins often destined for markets in China and Hong Kong.
Despite the scale of the fishing, there are just eight species given some protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
At the previous Cites meeting in Thailand in 2013, hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and porbeagle sharks were added to Appendix II as well as all species of manta rays.
Appendix II means that trade is allowed but it has to be shown to be sustainable.
August 29, 2016 –The New York state governor, Andrew Cuomo, and his news anchor brother Chris have been criticised by conservationists and constituents after posing beside a threatened shark they killed on a fishing trip.
The governor tweeted two photos of himself and friends standing next to the bloodied shark as it hung from a marina-side gantry.
“Today’s catch: A 154.5-lb [70kg] Thresher shark off the south shore of Long Island,” Cuomo tweeted.
All three species of thresher shark are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) because of their declining populations. Fishing for them is regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration but it is not illegal.
Despite its legality, the UN’s patron of the oceans, Lewis Pugh, said the killing and subsequent photos were “abhorrent” and worked against those trying to conserve dwindling shark numbers.
“The environment is the primary issue on the global agenda, so it is extraordinary that a senior politician could be so ignorant about it,” he said.
June 23, 2016 — The following was released by the Garden State Seafood Association:
Finning of sharks (the process of removing fins at sea and discarding the shark) is currently illegal in the U.S. and Garden State Seafood Association (GSSA) supports that law. The Shark Conservation Act of 2010 (SCA) prohibits any person from removing any of the fins of a shark at sea and discarding its body. The GSSA supports this law and existing associated exemptions for spiny dogfish and smooth dogfish sharks.
However, there is a direct federal allowance for the sale and possession of legally-harvested shark fins regulated and supported by NOAA, the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration. Any effort to overturn this allowance at the federal level is simply not based on fact.
The “Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2016” makes it illegal to sell the fins from legally-harvested shark species, including all large coastal sharks, Threshers and Mako. One result of this requirement may include the fins of these sharks being removed on shore after harvest and needlessly thrown away.
This legislation represents a shameful waste of food and results in decreased revenues to New Jersey fishermen and their families. It will harm commercial fisherman, their families, and coastal communities around the Nation who participate in legal shark fisheries. And since sharks are already sustainably managed by NOAA, the legislation adds no conservation benefit to shark resources.
U.S. fisheries management has a strong conservation ethic with respect to our shark fisheries. The sharks we harvest are sustainably managed by NOAA, the meat is consumed throughout the U.S. and around the world, and the fins associated with these legally-harvested sharks are desired by overseas markets for their food and cultural significance.
Support U.S. fishermen and U.S fisheries management by OPPOSING the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2016
About the Garden State Seafood Association:
The GSSA is comprised of commercial fishermen, shore-based seafood processors, commercial dock facilities, seafood markets and restaurants, and various NJ-based commercial fishing industry support businesses. The GSSA membership represents every major port in the State, harvesting approximately $100 million dollars worth of seafood products annually, supporting 2000 jobs, and contributing significantly to the coastal economy of the State of New Jersey.
California (March 24, 2016) — Drift gill nets, fiercely contested fishing gear used to snag swordfish and thresher sharks in deep waters off Southern California, would be largely banned under legislation authored by a South Bay state lawmaker.
Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat whose district includes much of the Los Angeles County coastline, is drafting the final language of a bill that would halt state permits for drift gill nets and create a new state permitting system for alternative swordfish-catching gear that California fishery managers and researchers still are testing for commercial use.
Senate Bill 1114 would allow about 20 permitted fishers to continue using the nets but otherwise would grant new commercial swordfish-hunting permits only for deep-set buoy gear. Allen expects to release the bill’s final language Monday and introduce it to a Senate committee in April.