The IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group
Shark News 8: December 1996
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Shark Specialist Group News
Meetings
1996 has been a very busy year for the Shark Specialist Group (SSG). Unusually, there have been two meetings of SSG members, one during the American Elasmobranch Society's meeting in New Orleans (June), and the other during the World Fisheries Congress in Brisbane, Australia, in August. The second was particularly well attended, thanks to the generosity of the United States National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), WWF's Endangered Seas Campaign, TRAFFIC International, UK Department of the Environment, National Audubon Society and other non-governmental organisations, as well as the employers of many members who allowed them to attend.
Species assessments and Action Plan
These meetings and a lengthy correspondence have helped the SSG to undertake a great deal of work. Priorities have included continued work on elasmobranch species assessments, both for the 1996 IUCN Red List (see report on page 4) and for the Shark Action Plan. The Action Plan has also progressed well, with circulation of two drafts, although some sections are still incomplete. Please note that continued prompt input from members will be essential if we are to complete the Action Plan on schedule within the next few months, for publication prior to the CITES Conference in June 1997.
CITES Animals Committee documents
All SSG members were consulted during the preparation and review of a discussion paper on the status of shark fisheries, compiled on behalf of the Animals Committee by the US NMFS.
The SSG also reported separately to the CITES Animals Committee on The implications of biology for the conservation and management of sharks (see page 1). Sarah Fowler and Merry Camhi attended the Animals Committee meeting with Alison Rosser of the IUCN Species Survival Commission in order to present this report. We are most grateful for the assistance and information provided at extremely short notice by many SSG members which helped to make the SSG document so useful. Our report will now be reviewed by contributors and made more widely available once this process has been completed (SSG members: please contact Merry Camhi if you would like to help with the review).
The SSG has also contributed to the work being carried out by TRAFFIC on reviewing the international trade in sharks (see page 6), with some members being commissioned to help carry out regional surveys for TRAFFIC or asked to review the draft report.
Shark News
This is the third issue of our newsletter, Shark News, distributed in 1996. We have not managed four issues a year, but the length has increased to 16 pages and the print run is now 1,300. This is purely thanks to the generous sponsorship we have received, acknowledged on the back cover of each publication. Donations also help towards newsletter expenses, but cover only a tiny fraction of the cost.
We do not yet have a sponsor for the next issue, so please send any offers or suggestions to the editors. We are also in need of ideas for future themes, copy for future issues and, particularly urgent, volunteer guest editors. Sourcing the material for three issues a year is very time-consuming for Sarah Fowler and Merry Camhi (particularly when we end up having to write a great deal of the text ourselves) and it is difficult to do this as well as dealing with urgent Shark Group work.
Reappointment of SSG members
The end of 1996 also marks the end of the current IUCN Triennium and therefore of everyone's membership of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. SSG members must be invited to rejoin in 1997, once the IUCN has appointed the new co-chairs for the SSG (who will be Sarah Fowler and Jack Musick, with Merry Camhi continuing as a deputy chair). The present membership (about 130) includes many inactive members who will not be reappointed (but can continue to receive Shark News). Active members and new members who have important contributions to make (particularly from geographical regions where we have few contacts) will, in due course, be (re)appointed formally in writing by one of the co-chairs (see below). There are also some vacant regional vice-chair positions to be filled. Meanwhile, all active members are asked to consider their membership as continuing. We have too much urgent work underway to wait to be reconstituted!
New structure and terms of reference for SSG
As a result of the increasing significance of the input of the SSG to issues such as red listing elasmobranchs and preparation for the next CITES Conference, the IUCN Species Survival Commission has suggested that the Group draw up terms of reference (probably based on those developed for the African Elephant Specialist Group) and clear policies for inviting members to rejoin the Group in 1997. We will need to consider carefully the balance of membership expertise required to enable the Group to work most effectively, including representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations, scientists, policy-makers, communicators, educators etc., and as balanced an input as possible from all geographical regions.
It has been suggested that a formal SSG Advisory Group should be set up to help direct the policy and priorities of the SSG and ensure that its output is authoritative and well-balanced. Such a Group would be comprised primarily of the Co-, Deputy and Regional Chairs, with additional input from appointed members whose area of expertise was not otherwise represented.
Members wishing to comment on these proposals should contact Sarah Fowler, Jack Musick or Merry Camhi.
Thanks from the Acting Chair
I would like to thank everyone for their contributions to the work of the SSG over the past few years, and for your patience with my frequently slow response to your communications. Most members will already be aware that all Shark Specialist Group posts are voluntary, and carried out without clerical help. It is therefore sometimes impossible to keep to deadlines or find the time to respond to mail which is not of the highest urgency when full-time work (or family duties) intervene. Please, therefore, accept my apologies if one of your letters is in the large backlog of unanswered mail on my desk.
Finally, I would like to express my particular thanks to the two organisations which have provided the Shark Group with a great deal of support, and without which we would not have been able to achieve the work described above: the National Audubon Society for supporting Merry Camhi's work, and the Nature Conservation Bureau for supporting mine and the production of this Newsletter.
Sarah Fowler, Acting Chair
Communicating with the Shark Specialist Group
Would all Shark Specialist Group members please send their email address to the editors and tell us whether you are a subscriber to Elasmo-L. This information will help us to improve our regular communication with you, reduce our high international postage costs, and let us know what proportion of members see our postings on Elasmo-L.
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