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WHY ARE MANY SHARK POPULATIONS DEPLETED?

This was the first year the Downeast Maine Shark Tournament was targeted by animal rights activists (it was just a matter of time). The protests came in the form of large, one page ads in local newspapers and an airplane flying over the weigh-ins at Camp Ellis towing a banner that read: END THE CRUEL SHARK TOURNAMENT NOW!! The protests were funded by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), with help from their friends in the Maine Animal Coalition (MAC). The major premise of the protest was that shark fishing is cruel. In fact, on the HSUS website, under the subheading of 'Shark Tournaments', they state that:

"Shark tournaments are cruel, ecologically irresponsible events designed to make a spectator sport out of killing sharks and watching them be killed".

Whether or not shark fishing is 'cruel' is - like everything else in life - a matter of opinion. Personally, I believe the people who are protesting shark tournaments are basically good people, and are doing what they feel is right. However, I also believe these people are far more radical than the average person in this regard, and are not looking for any 'middle ground'. It seems to me that they and their donors are totally against fishing and hunting in general - even if they say otherwise. If you look at their websites, the groups they link to their websites, and their stated missions, it could easily be argued that their ideal world is one in which we are all vegetarians, and animals have the exact same rights as humans.

For example, look at the statement that shark fishing is 'cruel' and it makes a spectator sport out of killing sharks. How then could a walleye tournament not be cruel and make a spectator sport out of killing walleye? What about Redfish tournaments in the south? Ice fishing tournaments in the north during winter? Is setting a hook in the mouth of one of these fish and removing it from it's environment any less 'cruel' than setting a hook in a sharks mouth and removing it from the ocean? And aren't almost all fishing tournaments spectator sports, where the fish are put on display in some form at weigh-ins for people to look at?

And what about people who catch fish just for fun, and are not involved in a tournament? Suppose a 10 year old fishing on a lake shore catches 6 yellow perch and proudly puts them on a stringer for everyone around him to see. Then he takes them home and his mom cleans them and cooks them for his dinner. Is the process of setting a hook in the mouth of the perch and yanking them out of the water and laying them on the bank to die of asphyxiation somehow less cruel than catching and killing a shark on a rod and reel?

I find some things offensive and unacceptable as well, and one of these is the deplorable living situations that exist for so many children in Maine. The Downeast Maine Shark Tournament has raised thousands of dollars over 4 years, which were effectively used by United Way of York County to improve the lives of disadvantaged children and their families living in poverty. During these 4 years, the tournament has landed and weighed in a TOTAL of 22 sharks (an average of less than 6 sharks per tournament each year). All completely legal based on U.S. federal law, and a total FAR LESS than could have been weighed in if we did not restrict the number of blue sharks caught by imposing higher length limits than those allowed by federal law. But apparently the legal capture and landing of a total of 22 sharks over 4 years is too great a cost in shark suffering in the opinion of HSUS and their allies to justify the decrease in suffering the money that was raised brought to kids and their families when it was utilized on their behalf by United Way of York County. Therefore, they will likely continue to try and shut down the Downeast Maine Shark Tournament.

THE ISSUE OF OVERFISHING SHARKS

As noted above, whether or not shark fishing is cruel is a matter of opinion. If the protesters want to argue that they are protesting the shark tournament because shark populations are depleted, then they have no argument. Shark tournaments are not responsible for the decline in the shark population that definitely has occurred for many shark species over the past two decades.

Lets look at the facts. It's a fact that populations of many of the large, apex predator sharks are dangerously depleted (read "Collapse and Conservation of Shark Populations in the Northwest Atlantic", Science Magazine, volume 299 pages 389-392, 2003). These animals are very susceptible to over fishing, due to late onset of sexual maturity, long gestation periods in many females, and the birth of only a few young at a time. However, it is not recreational shark fishing which has brought about this problem. It has been brought about primarily by the practice (both legal and illegal) of shark finning (catching sharks and removing their fins and discarding the rest of the animal), as well as unsustainable fishing by commercial shark fisheries around the world, using longline gear, floating and fixed gillnets, and strikenetting.

Shark Finning

If you read the literature on this subject, you will find that many researchers estimate that about 100 million sharks are killed each year worldwide. But this was in fact based on estimates only, derived through various methods. The European and Asian shark finning industry has long been thought to be the major contributor to the killing of these estimated 100 million sharks. In October of 2006, a research paper published in the journal "Ecology Letters" (volume 9, pages 1115-1126) estimated that the real number sharks killed each year for their fins is between 26 million and 73 million. The researchers developed these numbers by examining the trade records from global commercial shark fin markets and doing extrapolations.

Why are so many sharks killed just for their fins? In the past two decades, demand for shark fin soup boomed in Asia. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are the main shark fin trading centers. Out on the open ocean, captured sharks are "finned" and the rest of their bodies are dumped at sea. The meat of the shark is too low-value compared to the value of other fish meat (e.g. tuna) so 95-99% of the shark is discarded to conserve hold space in the boat for the fins. Shark fin provides gelatinous bulk in shark fin soup, but it has no taste - the soup has to be flavored with chicken or other stock. While a fisherman in India will earn only $6 per pound of shark fin, a bowl of soup can cost $100 in a Hong Kong restaurant. Interestingly, some studies have found that Asian consumers are mostly unaware of the unsustainability of the shark fin trade. Educating these consumers may be one way to slow down the practice of killing sharks for their fins.

It has traditionally been difficult to accurately estimate the number of sharks killed for their fins, because it is a very secretive market. A documentary film by Rob Stewart looked at Cocos Island off Costa Rica and uncovered the presence of dozens of clandestine shark fin-drying operations overseen by the Taiwanese mafia, contributing to the serious depletion of the world's shark populations. China's appetite for shark fins -- specifically for soups and medicinal purposes -- has created a multibillion-dollar shark-finning industry. Killing sharks for their fins in other parts of the world affects both commercial and recreational fishermen in the U.S. as well. These are pelagic fish, and like tuna, they are known to swim back and forth across the Atlantic, so there are not distinct Eastern and Western Atlantic populations of sharks. Implementing conservative measures in the U.S. waters to help sharks repopulate will be less effective if these same sharks swim east to Europe, or in the case of Pacific sharks, west to Asian waters, and are randomly slaughtered once they get there.

Banning Shark Finning

The United States passed the "Shark Finning Prohibition Act", which went into effect March 13, 2002. This act makes it illegal for a U.S. fishing boat anywhere-or a foreign ship in U.S. territorial waters-to possess the fins of any shark unless the rest of its carcass is also onboard. A similar law has been in effect for Atlantic fleets since 1993, and, more recently, in certain regional areas of the Pacific.

However, enforcing shark finning bans is difficult. If you get a chance, go read the story concerning the transport vessel, the King Diamond II. Briefly, on Aug. 13, 2002 a helicopter from the Navy's USS Fife spotted an 84-foot fishing boat - the King Diamond II out of Honolulu -plowing slowly through international seas southeast of Acapulco, Mexico. Riding low in the water, the modern vessel appeared weighted down with heavy cargo. Yet there were no signs of fishing gear. The U.S. Coast Guard boarded the vessel, and found 32 tons of shark fins. These fins were estimated to represent the destruction of some 30,000 sharks!! They had purchased these fins from various fishing vessels at sea, and were transporting them to markets, ultimately in Asia. Amazingly, most of these fins had begun to rot, because the refrigeration unit had broken down on the ship, so ultimately these 30,000 sharks were killed for absolutely no reason.

The Coast Guard escorted the ship to San Diego, and federal attorneys charged the ship's crew and owners under the new shark-finning statute. The ships owners were eventually fined about $620,000 for illegally transporting shark fins without the shark carcasses. However, once the lawyers got involved, things got funny. It wasn't until June, 2005 that finally a judge ruled that the fine could stand, and the company had to pay the $620,000.

It's amazing to think that just this one boat - on just one trip - was carrying the fins of some 30,000 sharks. I would wager the shark fins on that single boat on just that single trip in that one year represented more dead sharks than have been killed total in every shark tournament in the U.S combined since shark tournaments became popular. And yet HSUS wastes valuable money protesting shark tournaments, instead of using this money to further the cause against shark finning. They know that shark tournaments are easy targets. They are nearby (compared to countries that are major players in shark finning), highly visible, and generally have a large amount of media surrounding them. So they jump right in and try to trump the media attention to get it away from the event, and focus it on their agenda. They even published the phone number of the mayor of Saco in their ads, so that he could be subjected to irate phone calls from their minions. Yes, the mayor of Saco, Maine is the guy you need to get after if you want to end over fishing of sharks in the world. This certainly helped their cause a lot.

Finally, if you spend a few hours online or reading journal articles about shark finning, you will be flabbergasted at how pervasive this practice is in so many countries around the world. You will be even more impressed with how difficult it is to monitor it, or enforce rules against it. Even countries that purport to have laws banning shark finning have built loopholes into these laws, and large numbers of clandestine groups engage in illegal shark finning in these countries after paying off the proper officials. It really is incredible.

What is the U.S. Doing About Shark Conservation?

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act requires over fished shark stocks to be rebuilt and requires healthy shark populations to be maintained. You can visit the NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) website at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sharks/FS_management.htm to see some of the management plans that are being implemented to stop over fishing of endangered sharks.

Although U.S. and other commercial shark fisheries have also contributed to the decline of sharks through both directed fisheries and by-catch, it is important to remember that the commercial guys operate under a set of rules and laws, and can be monitored and regulated. Right now, U.S. commercial fishermen operate by the rules that NMFS currently mandates. If stricter rules regarding the directed shark fishery or shark by catch in other fisheries are implemented by NMFS, then the commercial guys will have to work under those rules. On the other hand, the shark finning crowd seems to be nothing short of modern day pirates, who operate in a very secretive manner with essentially no oversight, either at sea or when they unload their catch at market.

Recreational Shark Fishing

Right now, U.S. Federal Law allows recreational shark fishermen to retain one single legal shark species per boat, per day, if it has a fork length greater than 4.5 feet. Legal sharks here in Maine are the blue shark, mako shark, thresher shark, and porbeagle shark. The recreational shark fishermen I know are law abiding citizens and strictly adhere to these rules. In fact, the vast majority of people I know personally who shark fish regularly during our short season NEVER or very rarely kill a single shark, even though they may catch and bring to the boat several sharks each season that they could legally keep. We enjoy the sport of shark fishing and the last thing we want to see is sharks disappear from our oceans. We rely on NMFS to use the best science in determining what sharks we should be allowed to catch, and if the time comes when they say to us that we cannot fish for any sharks for awhile, we will adhere to that law as well. We are not, however, going to allow HSUS and their angry mobs to dictate whether or not we can recreationally fish for sharks because they think it is cruel.

I would guess HSUS must have spent some $3000 - $5000 for their newspaper ads and plane banner to protest our shark tournament this year. The tournament landed a total of 9 sharks. So if they had succeeded in shutting down our event this year, they would have saved 9 sharks at a cost of $333.00 to $555.00 per shark. The thousands of dollars that were pumped into the local economy by the participants, as well as the thousands that were donated to United Way would have been lost - all to save 9 sharks. Seems to me this HSUS money could have been used more effectively to better the plight of sharks worldwide.

In fact, recreational shark fishermen will likely see some regulatory changes in 2008, as the NMFS attempts to limit fishing to help restore Atlantic shark populations. As of this writing, proposed measures include prohibiting both recreational and commercial landing of porbeagle sharks, and prohibition of recreational landing of sandbar (brown) sharks, combined with a significantly reduced commercial fishery for sandbar sharks. Whatever the NMFS rules are in 2008, the Downeast Maine Shark Tournament will abide by them, and no doubt will make them even stricter within the tournament rules themselves as to what sharks can be caught and killed.