This week the Spanish Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs will put forward a new legislation to limit shark fishing in Europe’s top shark fishing nation, Spain. The Spanish Ministry plans to commit to three new legislations. The first is a prohibition on all hammerhead and thresher sharks, which are particularly vulnerable and heavily fished accidentally as by-catch on longlines. The second is to put a catch limit on short-fin makos and blue sharks which are heavily fished because they are targeted specifically by Spanish fisherman.
The third is a “fins attached” pilot project; this requires fisherman to bring their targeted shark fins back to shore with the shark’s body still attached. The common fishing method used at the moment is to cut the fins off the shark, and then throw the body overboard, the shark is still alive when it falls hopelessly to the bottom of the ocean and is left to slowly and painfully drown.
This all sounds good but to me it looks like just another case of politicians placating an increasingly demanding public; in this case for shark conservation. That is they will implement token legislation but fail to make a commitment that could actually yield significant change- such as banning shark fining entirely.
Large sharks cannot be sustainably fished. If their numbers were larger then maybe that issue could be argued but as it stands their numbers are too low and their life traits too incompatible with any sort of commercial fishery program. And I’m not just referring to a single species of sharks I’m talking about all large predatory sharks; hammerheads, threshers, blue, makos, oceanic white-tip, great white, tiger, bull and the list goes on. In the last 50 years all these species (and many more) have declined by over 80% due to over fishing. 80%! Imagine if your heart was only functioning at 20%; imagine how hard the heart would have to work to pump blood all around your body. Now imagine if you were then required to give daily blood donations. You’d be screwed your body could not sustain the demand. The chance of species recovery when population numbers are less than 20% are dicey at best but then they continually fished or caught as by-catch, how on earth are they meant to recover? Sharks and large sharks especially, takes years to reach sexual maturity, they have only a small number of pups and reproduce once a year, often less. The principle sustainable fishing requires that equal numbers are leaving the population (i.e. being fished) as are entering the population (i.e. being born). It is quite obvious from the 80% decline that far more sharks are being removed from the population than are being added.
If we are to seriously try to conserve sharks then politicians need to implement policies that are based on what is best for the sharks not what is best for the fisherman. Might I suggest a 20-30 year moratorium of shark fishing? And if after 20-30 years their numbers have increased to readdress the issue of fishing with strict guidelines and proper monitoring in place. These will not be popular policies because they will be financially crippling for some. But a collapse of all sharks will be crippling to the entire fishing industry. It is time to take action, to make relevant policies, to ban sharks fining, it is time to put the planet first.
4/2/2009 Emma Bastian
