The IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group
Shark News 1: June 1994
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Regional News
Brasil
Alberto Amorim has reported a shark attack at a beach near his home in
Santos during February. A boy's foot was bitten and, as usual, the press
took up the story with great excitement; it was still the subject of media
attention two weeks later. There were some calls for all sharks to be killed
near beaches to protect swimmers, despite the fact that attacks are very
unusual in the area.
Dr Amorim points out that no fewer than 24 people were drowned
while swimming from the beaches of four towns close to Santos during
the carnival a few days after the shark attack. Unsurprisingly, little
attention was paid to these statistics and the much greater likelihood of
swimmers losing their lives in this way, or indeed in traffic accidents, than
through shark attack.
The Shark Group needs to make sure that these sort of comparative
mortality figures are made more widely available to the media to
counteract the sensationalism elicted by shark attacks on swimmers and
surfers.
Ecuador
Several accounts of illegal shark fishing around the Galapagos Marine
Reserve have recently been received from diving tourists and tour
operators in the area. They include divers finding dozens of dead
hammerheads in fishing nets set in only 10m of water less than 100m
offshore. This area was zoned for scientific and educational use only: the
highest protection category there. Additionally, shark fishing is illegal
within 80 miles of shore in the Galapagos and commercial fishing
anywhere within two miles of shore. Boats have also been filmed by
tourists trolling for shark about 50-100m offshore.
It is to be hoped that these incidents receive sufficient publicity to help
the Ecuadorean government find the support they need to enforce
controls within the Reserve. This is one of only a very few areas where
divers may still see schools of hammerheads, and ecotourism should be
a huge source of foreign currency for the country.
Canada
On 1st January 1994 it became illegal to take white sharks in Californian
waters for at least the next five years except with a scientific or educational
permit from the Department of Fish and Game, or as incidental catch in
selected net fisheries. (Press release from the Center for Marine
Conservation, San Francisco, California.)
Assembly Bill 522 prevents white sharks from becoming a target
species for sport or commercial fishing in Califomian waters. An adult
white shark caught in southern California in September 1993 had sold for
$10,000 and large sets of shark jaws have also been fetching thousands
of dollars, so the protection of the species was obviously timely. In
contrast, it must be noted that the history of white shark attacks in
California, Oregon and Washington shows only four fatal attacks out of
38 documented incidents in the 18 years since 1975, illustrating the
much greater threat posed to sharks by man than vice versa.
What was particularly interesting about the campaign to support the
protection proposals was the diverse nature of the coalition of interest
groups involved. They included major commercial and sports fishing
groups, scientific organisations, surfing groups, sport diving
associations, marine mammal conservation groups and environmental bodies.
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