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World Shark Conservation Sinking in Sea of Apathy SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, April 10, 2002 (ENS) - Sharks of the world are at risk, but only 16 of the dozens of nations with shark fisheries are working towards shark conservation, the international organization responsible for trade in endangered species will be told this week.
As the Animals Committee of the Conservation on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) holds its 18th meeting here all this week, shark conservation is a central issue on the agenda. The Animals Committee meeting is being held in advance of the 12th Conference of Parties to CITES taking place in Chile in November. In addition to shark conservation, the Animals Committee Trade will also consider revising CITES classifications to better control trade in freshwater turtles and tortoises of Southeast Asia, bottlenose dolphins of the Black Sea, and the global conservation of seahorses. A universal labeling system for the identification of caviar is also on the table. Concern over the range of threats to sharks has been growing internationally, according to an information paper by Australia that will be considered here later this week. The the world's 350 species of shark, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List 2000 lists 79 species as imperiled - ranging from "critically endangered" through to "lower risk near threatened."
During the 400 million years sharks have inhabited the world's oceans they have evolved into apex predators. They are at the top of the food chain among marine life but are not able to withstand predation by humans. Because of demand for shark meat and for fins used in shark's fin soup, shark have come under heavy pressure from harvesters. No one knows for sure the numbers of sharks in the world's oceans. Sampling by marine biologists indicates the following species may already be near extinction - mako, elephant fish, lemon, hammerhead, and great white sharks. Sharks are vulnerable to exploitation due to their late attainment of sexual maturity, long life spans, slow growth and low fecundity. Each female only produces enough young to replace the population under low or natural levels of mortality and as such are unable to adapt as a response to the impacts of threats by producing larger numbers. A range of multilateral agreements and organizations have recognized the precarious nature of sharks and drawn attention to the need to do more to ensure the protection of threatened and vulnerable sharks, the Australian report points out. In addition to the IUCN's Species Survival Commission, these organizations and agreements include:
It is under the FAO International Plan of Action that governments have been failing to even assess the condition of sharks in their fisheries. Three years after the adoption of a voluntary International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks, and one year after the date by which shark fishing nations were required to produce their assessments and develop and implement their National Plans of Action, very few of the 87 FAO member nations with shark fisheries have done so. The Australian report indicates that:
The voluntary obligation for countries to assess and manage their shark fisheries arose when, in 1999, the Committee on Fisheries of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) adopted an International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks. This had its origin in a 1994 CITES Resolution that the FAO gather necessary information on sharks to develop and propose guidelines leading to a plan of action for their conservation and management. Since shark meat has remained relatively low priced, many fishermen are interested in the fins only leading to the practice of live-finning, which is removing the fins from the shark while the shark is alive and returning it to the water. It is estimated that worldwide 100 to 200 million sharks per year die in the fishing and finning processes, earning $240 million per year for suppliers. Demand for shark's fins has risen sharply in the People's Republic of China where liberalization has lifted restrictions against eating shark-fin soup. This combined with increasing wealth, have fueled the increasing demand for sharks. Hong Kong alone consumes an estimated three million kilograms of shark in a year. Sharks preferred for shark-fin soup are sandbar, bull, blue, hammerhead, blacktip, porbeagle, mako, and thresher.
Overlooking the recommendation from its own U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the United States is currently not planning to submit proposals to list any shark species on CITES Appendix II, which permits only carefully monitored international trade in these species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recommended Appendix II listing for the whale shark. The Humane Society International and Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington, DC based conservation group, have recommended the Appendix II listing of the great white shark, and the basking shark. The report on the unsustainable catch of sharks to the November CITES meeting by the chairman of the Animals Committee, Dr. Marinus Hoogmoed of the Netherlands Museum of Natural History, will be important in determining the global progress being made to protect sharks. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved. |
Hammerhead sharks like this one photographed in 1982 are thought to be nearing extinction. (Photo courtesy 
This 14 foot, 1200 pound tiger shark was caught in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu. 1966. (Photo by Dr. James McVey, NOAA Sea Grant Program)
Whale shark, Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (Photo courtesy NOAA)