The IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group
Shark News 4: July 1995
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Elasmobranch research and conservation initiatives
Ocean Wildlife Campaign for the conservation of large pelagic fishes
Large pelagic fish - sharks, tunas, swordfish and marlin - are among
the most threatened creatures in the oceans. These long-lived, apex
predators, who play an important role in the structure and function of
marine communities, have been seriously depleted because of
relentless over-fishing and chronic mismanagement.
A coalition of US conservation organisations has recently
established the Ocean Wildlife Campaign to strengthen management
for these species from national to global levels. The aims of the
Campaign are to reverse the declines in large pelagic fish populations
and begin the hard work towards their restoration. Campaign steering
members are the National Audubon Society, National Coalition for
Marine Conservation, Natural Resources Defense Council, New
England Aquarium, Wildlife Conservation Society, and World Wildlife
Fund.
Shark conservation will be one of the primary targets of the Ocean
Wildlife Campaign (OWC). The OWC is planning to produce an
identification guide to sharks and shark parts (including fins) for
species most threatened by international trade. The guide is intended
to help shark fishers and fishery managers identify to species the
sharks they are catching and monitoring, and to help CITES parties
fulfil the recent CITES shark resolution (see opposite). The Campaign
will also provide some sponsorship for the production and expanded
distribution of Shark News. On a domestic level, the OWC will
continue to push for more rational management of the US Atlantic
shark fishery, including a reduction in quota for the heavily depleted
large coastal shark category.
For more information on the Campaign, please contact David
Wilmot, 666 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20003 USA.
Fax: (+1) 202-547-9112; e-mail: dwilmot@audubon.org
Action Plan
The Shark Specialist Group has just received news of a grant from the
Peter Scott Fund towards the costs of completing the compilation of
the Global Shark Action Plan. Shark Group members should receive
a copy of a letter with their mailings of Shark News asking for thier
contributions to the section on conservation priorities for elasmobranch
conservation. However, all readers are very welcome to send in their
comments to Sarah Fowler or Merry Camhi, Shark News Editors and
Action Plan compilers. We are particularly interested in obtaining
information on the socioeconomic importance of elasmobranchs
for subsistence fishing communities and their value for tourism.
Information on any other non-consumptive uses of these fish would be very useful.
Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species
The Shark Specialist Group has recently
been awarded a grant from the UK
government's Darwin Initiative for conserving
global biodiversity. The grant will fund a
collaborative study with the Sabah Fisheries
Department(also in liaison with projects being run by WWF Malaysia)
of the problems facing sharks, rays and sawfish in the rivers, estuaries
and inshore waters of Sabah, East Malaysia (north Borneo). This study
will be the first detailed regional investigation of the biodiversity,
distribution and conservation needs of elasmobranchs, which are
threatened in South East Asia by habitat degradation, fisheries and
trade. Planning is still at an early stage but, in addition to taxonomic
and biodiversity studies, it is hoped that the project will address the
socioeconomic importance of elasmobranchs, the need for fisheries
management, protected areas and education of local people, and
provide the information needed by decision-makers for elasmobranch
conservation. It will also be used to highlight freshwater elasmobranch
conservation issues world-wide. Field work should take place mainly
in 1996, and a final international workshop is planned for early 1997.
Contact Sarah Fowler (Shark News editor) for more information.
European Elasmobranch Society
The establishment of the proposed EES has come a step closer with the
decision of a government conservation agency, Scottish Natural
Heritage, to fund a feasibility study into setting up this European-wide
non-governmental organisation. A meeting of potential national
partners in the initiative should be held in Brussels later this year.
Elasmobranch Red List
The IUCN has recently published its revised Red List categories and
criteria (IUCN, 1994). These new criteria make it possible to include
long-lived, slow-breeding (i.e. K-selected) species on the global
IUCN Red List even where precise data on population size and
declines are not available. This is because the new criteria measure
population decline in terms of generations, in other words the
capacity of the species to recover its number following exploitation
It is therefore likely that a considerable number of elasmobranch
species could qualify for listing under the new system. The 1994
IUCN Red List, using the old system of categories, included just three
elasmobranchs, but the 1996 List should include many more, several
of which are likely to be of high priority for conservation attention.
However, no systematic, global evaluation of the elasmobranchs
for their threat status has ever been carried out before, and the size of
the task of attempting to assign Red List categories for the roughly
1,000 known species of elasmobranch species must not be
underestimated. One of the difficulties that will arise is the paucity of
population data and the lack of species-specific fishery data. However,
this is not a cause for pessimism, since the new IUCN criteria provide
a means for projecting and inferring the status from what little is
known. For example, the South Australian shark fishery has been
exquisitely modelled by CSIRO biologists. Using this multi-species
model as a framework, combined with other historical fishery data
and fishery-independent biological data, it may be possible to
extrapolate results to other, less well-known elasmobranch fisheries,
and thus predict the likelihood of their decline and collapse.
With results required by 1996, for the CITES Animals Committee
(see opposite), the next IUCN Red List and the Shark Action Plan,
the Shark Specialist Group urgently needs to raise funds to enable
this work to be undertaken.
Canadian Atlantic shark management plan
The results of a seminar on shark management held on 28 March in
Halifax, Nova Scotia, have now been released by the Canadian
Department of Fisheries and Oceans(DFO).The seminar was attended
by some 90 individual resource-users representing commercial,
recreational and native interests, and operated on a workshop format
with cross-sector representation. Its objectives were to identify and
develop management policies for the developing Canadian Atlantic
fishery for pelagic sharks (porbeagle, shortfin mako and blue sharks),
under the DFO's mandate of resource conservation and sustainable
development.
Shorfin mako Isurus oxyrinchus. © 1989 by Sid F. Cook. All rights reserved.
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The DFO's News Release (17 May 1995) stated that all workshops
reached consensus on a number of basic policy objectives.
- Given the lack of scientific information and the cautious approach
recommended by science, this fishery should be considered
exploratory, not commercial, and directed primarily at data
collection for stock assessment purposes.
- Entry to the exploratory fishery should be strictly limited to those
with historical attachment (past participants).
- The recreational sector should also have access, linked to data
collection.
- Existing established fisheries with by-catches of shark (e.g.
swordfish) should not be negatively affected by the licensing of a
directed shark fishery or the setting of precautionary catch levels.
- There must be strict adherence to monitoring and enforcement of
the measures governing the exploratory shark fishery.
The scientific advice concerning the shark resource is unchanged
from last year and continued caution should be exercised in the shark
fishery. Once the status of the stocks has been determined, additional
measures may be required to further restrict access to this fishery. The
scientific advice also recommends precautionary catch levels be set
as it is not possible to make recommendations concerning harvest
levels at this time, given the lack of data available to carry out an
assessment.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Brian Tobin, will be
reviewing the results of the seminar and will shortly announce the
1995 Shark Management Plan, which was being drafted in Ottawa
during May.
Copies of the seminar summary and report are available from
Mike Calcutt, Resource Management Branch. Department of
Fisheries and Oceans, 200 Kent Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 0E6.
Status of international trade in shark species
The full text of this Resolution (Conf. 9.17), passed at the 9th Meeting
of the Conference of the Parties to CITES (Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in 1994, is:
NOTING the increase in the international trade in parts and derivatives
of sharks, and the document on this issue (Doc. 9.58) submitted by the
United States of America;
CONCERNED that some shark species are heavily utilized around
the world for their fins, skins and meat;
NOTING that levels of exploitation in some cases are unsustainable
and may be detrimental to the long-term survival of certain shark species;
NOTING that, at present, sharks are not specifically managed or
conserved by any multilateral or regional agreement forthe management
of marine fisheries;
NOTING further the ongoing initiatives to foster international co-
operation in the management of fisheries resources;
CONCERNED that the international trade in parts and products of
sharks lacks adequate monitoring and control;
RECOGNIZING that the members of the IUCN Species Survival
Commissions's Shark Specialist Group are currently reviewing the status
of sharks and the global trade in their parts and derivatives in the course
of developing an action plan on shark conservation;
CONSIDERING that the Conference of the Parties has competence
to consider any species subject to international trade;
RECOGNIZING that other intergovernmental organizations and
bodies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the
United Nations, and the International Commission for Conservation of
Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), have undertaken efforts to collect elaborate
statistical data on catches and landings of diverse marine species,
including sharks;
RECOGNIZING further that the collection of species-specific data is
a complex task, considering that there are some 100 species of sharks
being exploited both commercially and for recreation, and that numerous
countries utilize this marine resource;
THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES TO THE CONVENTION
URGES the Parties to submit to the Secretariat all available information
concerning the trade and biological status of sharks, including historical
catch and trade data on shark fisheries;
DIRECTS the Animals Committee, with the assistance of experts as
may be needed, to:
a) review such information, and information made available through
consultation with FAO and other international fisheries management
organizations and, where appropriate, to include information made
available by non-governmental organizations;
b) summarize the biological and trade status of sharks subject to
international trade; and
c) prepare a discussion paper on the biological and trade status of
sharks, at least six months prior to the tenth meeting of the conference of
the Parties; and
REQUESTS
a) FAO and other international fisheries management organizations
to establish programmes to further collect and assemble the necessary
biological and trade data on shark species, and that such additional
information be provided no later than six months prior to the 11th
meeting of the Conference of the Parties;
b) all nations utilizing and trading specimens of shark species to co-
operate with FAO and other international fisheries management
organizations, and to assist developing States in the collection of
species-specific data; and
c) FAO and other international fisheries management organization
to fully inform the CITES Secretariat of progress on collection
elaboration and analyses of data.
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