Sharks disappearing as fin chopping rises

Reuters 17 Feb 08;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Populations of tiger, bull, dusky and other sea sharks have plummeted by more than 95 percent since the 1970s as fisherman kill the animals for their fins or when they scoop other fish from the ocean, according to an expert from the World Conservation Union, or IUCN.

At particular risk is the scalloped hammerhead shark, whose young swim mostly in shallow waters along shores all over the world to avoid predators.

The scalloped hammerhead will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List as globally "endangered" due to overfishing and high demand for its valuable fins in the shark fin trade, said Julia Baum, a member of the IUCN's shark specialist group.

"As a result of high and mostly unrestricted fishing pressure, many sharks are now considered to be at risk of extinction," Baum said in a statement.

The numbers of many other large shark species have plunged due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year, said Baum, a fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Last year, IUCN put the great hammerhead, the largest of the nine species of hammerhead, on the Red List as "endangered." IUCN said in September that numbers of the shark in the eastern Atlantic may have crashed by 80 percent in the last 25 years.

Hammerhead meat has a very low value but the sharks are among the most endangered species because their fins are highly prized for the Asian delicacy shark-fin soup. In shark finning, fishermen chop the fins of the animals and dump the sharks back into the sea.

Fishing for sharks in international waters is unrestricted, said Baum, who supports a recently adopted U.N. resolution calling for immediate shark catch limits and a ban on shark finning.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Stuart Grudgings)

Shark species face extinction, says research
The Telegraph 18 Feb 08;

Nine new species of sharks, including the scalloped hammerhead, are to be added to the official list of animals at global risk of extinction, scientists have revealed.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) will add them to its "red list" of vulnerable species later this year after recent analyses showed over- fishing has reduced some populations by as much as 99 per cent.

Experts are particularly concerned at the rapid decline of the scalloped hammerhead, which the IUCN will list as "endangered" - its second highest of five levels of concern.

Sharks' fins are highly prized as a delicacy in Chinese cooking, and prices can reach as much as £150 per kg.

An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year, with many fishermen simply slicing off their fins before throwing them back into the water where they usually drown or bleed to death.

Dr Julia Baum, a member of the IUCN's Shark Specialist Group, revealed the plans to add the species to the endangered list at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Boston.

Dr Baum, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said: "Our oceans are being emptied of sharks and the scale of the problem is global.

"If we carry on without doing anything about it we are looking at a high risk that some of these could be extinct within our lifetime.

"On the high seas and in international waters there are no regulations or catch limits. It's a free for all.

"Over the last decade conservation concerns have been mounting. Now we need to convert that into action to introduce effective measures that are strictly enforced."

There are 126 sharks listed as at risk of extinction - defined by the IUCN as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.

Research by Dr Baum and colleagues found numbers of tiger, bull, dusky, smooth and scalloped hammerhead shark have collapsed by between 95 and 99 per cent off the US east coast since 1970.

Last year the Shark Specialist Group of the IUCN met to assess the risks to oceanic shark species - those that are highly mobile and live primarily in the open ocean, away from coastal areas.

Apart from classifying the scalloped hammerhead as endangered, the smooth hammerhead, the shortfin mako, the bigeye thresher and the common thresher will be listed as vulnerable.

Tiger, dusky and bull sharks will either be classed as vulnerable or "near threatened" - a category defined as close to the threshold for risk of extinction. The silky shark will also be classed as near threatened.

Scalloped hammerheads congregate in large numbers around seamounts and islands, making them easy targets for fishermen. It takes 16 years for them to reach maturity, meaning that populations take a long time to recover.

There are no catch limits in international waters and existing bans on "finning" are ineffective. Spanish fishing fleets in particular have been targeting sharks.

Millions of sharks are also taken by recreational fishermen and as bycatch by fleets fishing for tuna and swordfish.

In December the United Nations passed a resolution calling for catch limits and true shark-finning bans, and the European Union is currently drawing up a plan of action.

Sonja Fordham, of the Shark Alliance conservation alliance, said: "People think these wide-ranging, fast sharks are resilient to fishing; however, this is not the case.

"Concerned citizens can really help by making their fisheries ministers aware that they support conservation measures such as catch limits."