Species Under Threat As Shark Fin Market Grows

October 18, 2007

Release from: Scott Bevan
ABC News (Australia)

Of all creatures great and small, none strikes fear into people's hearts quite as much as the shark. Only this week, a woman on a surf ski fought off an attacking great white in waters off Byron Bay.

But it seems sharks have more to fear from us. The rapidly growing market for shark fin, particularly for use in some Asian dishes, is luring more and more fishermen into the hunt, chasing big money.

In New South Wales waters alone, catches of large sharks have almost doubled in three years. Critics doubt whether this is sustainable without pushing some species closer to extinction.

Darren Ward is a commercial fisherman looking for sharks in off Coffs Harbour.

"[I] went into shark fishery 12 months ago, the prawn industry was getting harder with the imported prawns, priced dropped, increase of fuel costs," he said.

Mr Ward is doing what his father and grandfather did, relying on the mercies of the sea for a living. But unlike his fishing forebears, what Mr Ward sets out to catch are sharks, mostly those from the whaler family.

He uses a longline stretching for kilometres and laced with hundreds of hooks.

"We shed approximately 300 to 400 hooks, depending what's around, if there's a few fish around," he said.

Mr Ward is one of a handful of Coffs Harbour operators who have converted their boats to fish for sharks, or more particularly, for their fins.

A huge appetite for shark fin mostly in Asia, but also in Australia, is making fishing for these creatures increasingly enticing.

For the shark fisherman, by far and away the most lucrative part of the animal is the fin. It fetches somewhere between $40 and $110 per kilo.

By contrast, a shark's body brings in between $1 and $3 per kilo, and the price is pretty much the same for the head or the tail.

In spite of those prices, the fishermen deny that they are targeting sharks just for their fins. Bill Litchfield says it's the sum of those body parts that makes it financially worthwhile.

"Put it this way: if the fins weren't there we wouldn't be fishing for them, but we certainly don't want to be wasting that resource of body because that resource basically pays for our bait, fuel and crew," he said.

Mr Litchfield, a shark fisherman on the NSW north coast, believes that at present levels the local industry is not harming shark populations.

"Shark have just progressively bred and bred and bred. They're in plague proportion out there at times," he said.

But globally, feeding the demand for shark fin could be a recipe for environmental disaster.

Doug Neil is one of a group of divers who are seeking out grey nurse sharks in deep waters around the Solitary Islands Marine Park on the NSW mid-north coast.

"It's just like watching them in an aquarium. The only big difference is that you're actually in the aquarium," he said.

He takes a dim view of shark fishing.

"I think it's disgusting. I think shark fin soup's overrated," he said.

Declining populations

James Cook University shark researcher Colin Simpfendorfer says there has been a severe decline in the numbers of some shark species.

"In fact, they quite often grow slowly, they mature late in life, they have a few number of young every few years and those sorts of thing limit the ability of sharks both to sustain fishing and to recover after fishing is taken away," he said.

Federal and state regulations try to keep devastating practices found elsewhere out of Australian waters.

Finning - retaining only the fin and dumping the rest of the shark - is banned.

In NSW, sharks listed as endangered or threatened, such as the grey nurse, are not to be taken. And there is a daily catch limit of one tonne per boat.

Mr Ward says one tonne is about 30 to 40 sharks, depending on the size.

"You can come back to 10 sharks if you catch the big fellas, but the main shark that we catch, probably 30 sharks, 40 sharks," he said.

Dive operator Mike Davey says killing that many sharks would be affecting the whole ecosystem.

"You take that predator out and it just allows the dominance of another species, and that can then upset the whole works," he said.

As a dive business owner, Mr Davey doesn't want to see the environment where he works be changed by fishing.

And he is concerned that although grey nurse sharks are officially protected, they can still be look hooked on the longline, putting even greater pressure on their dwindling numbers.

"For the grey nurse, well, it's extinction much closer," he said.

Darren Ward says he has inadvertently caught three grey nurse sharks in the past year or so, and released all of them.

"We protect them and we release them and away they swim away. They're gone. Not a problem," he said.

Western Australia has already been through the troubled waters of long-lining for sharks threatening their numbers.

In response to what researchers like Rory McAuley have reported, the state fisheries department has closed a large part of WA's coast to all forms of shark fishing. It monitors stocks and has restricted some long-lining methods.

"Given the inherent susceptibility of these species, that exploitation, new exploitation should be handled very carefully and with proper research," Dr McAuley said.

But shark fishermen say they know best about what needs to be done.

"[The] Government just needs to listen. We're the fishers. We know what we're doing," one said.

Tightening rules

Both sides of this fishing debate want the NSW Government to do more to protect both the industry and shark numbers.

Those already in the game, like Bill Litchfield, want the Government to ban commercial shark fishing to any new players.

"You'll find now that each month there's going to be more players. Players come in all the time," he said.

Mr Litchfield says shark fishing by the current operators is sustainable.

"It can handle what's there today. What it can't handle is another 50 entrants into this industry. It cannot handle that, it will collapse," he said.

Shane Huxley, who trawls for other fish, doesn't welcome the prospect of more shark boats moving in either.

"While there's three or four here, it's not a problem. When you get eight or 10, I'd say there'll be a serious problem between the trawlers and the sharkers," he said.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries has just released a discussion paper on commercial shark fishing. It proposes tightening catch limits to 90 tonnes a year or two tonnes a week.

But Mr Davey, the dive operator, says time for talking is running out. For the sharks' sake, the Government has to act.

"I think they need to look at it real quick. If we wait another four or five years there won't be any sharks, I don't think," he said.

Mr Litchfield says the Government should hear the shark fishermen's views.

"There's no reason why this fishery can't be just as good as it is now in 100 years time if the Government and the department listen to us fishermen right now," he said.

Dr Simpfendorfer says making shark fishing sustainable would be a challenge.

"It is possible for there to be sustainable shark fisheries; they're not necessarily easy to manage or easy to work, but it is possible," he said.

Mr Ward says fishermen want to protect the sharks and safeguard their industry.

"We want to make a living out of it - that's what people don't understand," he said.

"They just think we're just rake and pillage that ocean."