The IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group
Shark News 12: November 1998
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NAFO Focus on Northwest Atlantic
Elasmobranchs
Sonja Fordham
At their September 1998 Annual Meeting, Contracting Parties to the
Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) adopted their
Scientific Council's recommendations calling for improved training
in identification and reporting of elasmobranchs and swift assessment
of elasmobranchs in the NAFO Regulatory Area.
In response to the CITES resolution on shark data collection, the
NAFO Parties agreed to expand the list of individually identified
species of elasmobranchs included on NAFO data collection
questionnaires and requested that the national authorities submit
catch statistics with a maximum degree of detail.
Citing increasing interest in elasmobranchs worldwide, the NAFO
Parties requested that analyses on the distribution and abundance of
elasmobranchs be carried out and the results reported to the Scientific
Council at the earliest opportunity.
The United States also requested that NAFO consider development
of precautionary quotas for the skate fishery that occurs in NAFO
waters.
NAFO's management purview includes all fishery resources
except salmon, tunas, marlins, cetaceans, and sedentary species of
the continental shelf in international waters of FAO Statistical Area
21. Contracting Parties include Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark,
Estonia, the European Union, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania,
Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, and the United States.
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