Shark

by David Owen

  The Oceania Chondrichthyan Society is one of the newer entities, established in 2005. The society held its inaugural AGM in August 2006, in Hobart, Tasmania, delivering a charter to include elasmobranch research, education, conservation and sustainable utilisation. It is a joint venture between Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific islands of American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna islands. Many new species of Australian sharks and rays were described at the September 2008 conference. Among its aims is a desire to promote ‘a friendly, relaxed, egalitarian and welcoming atmosphere for members and those interested in the study of Chondrichthyes’.28

  It is such an approach that drives collective deliberation and action, but often those who should be working together come at an issue from opposite directions, as demonstrated by a May 2007 newspaper article posted on the society’s News and Events page. Headed ‘Warnings over shark numbers don’t add up’, the article is based on an underwater photograph taken at Seal Rocks on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, of a congregation of at least 60 grey nurse sharks and rebuts the claim that the Australian east coast population of grey nurse sharks may be close to extinction:

  To have 20 per cent of the population in one place is not mathematical or logical, especially when we claim we don’t know where their habitats are,’ a NSW Fisheries source told The Daily Telegraph. ‘There are much more than 500 . . . the Government has to admit it has made a mistake.’ The Daily Telegraph understands there is internal disquiet within NSW Fisheries at the policies of the [State] Government over grey nurses. The Nature Conservation Council (NCC) is pushing for more exclusion zones in NSW fishing areas on the grounds the species is nearly extinct . . . Anglers and divers say the breed is thriving in reefs not checked by scientists . . . Underwater Spearfishermen’s Association secretary Mel Brown, who has kept records of shark numbers for 10 years, believes they have grown to 6000 . . . Mr Brown said: ‘The Government has not admitted there are more sharks despite anecdotal evidence and photos showing otherwise. People claim we are bringing this to light because we want to fish them. That is not the case, we are for conservation. We just don’t want to be locked out of our favourite fishing spots.’ Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said claims the grey nurse shark was no longer an endangered species were based on pure speculation and not science.29

  The National Shark Research Consortium is a scientific collaboration between four leading American institutions in the field: the Florida Museum of National History, the Mote Marine Laboratory (Florida), the Pacific Shark Research Center (California) and the Florida Program for Shark Research. The consortium works closely with government in ‘assessing the status of shark stocks, managing U.S. shark fisheries, and helping the U.S. take the leading role in worldwide conservation and management of shark populations . . . the four organizations of the NSRC are uniquely qualified to conduct leading studies of sharks and their relatives on national, international and global scales’.30 The consortium runs concurrent projects, such as this 2007 research project into industrial contamination of freshwater sharks:

  To determine the health risks that human pharmaceuticals pose to juvenile bull sharks and other wildlife inhabiting wastewater-impacted rivers, Mote Marine Laboratory’s Center for Shark Research has just initiated a new study on pharmaceutical exposure in bull sharks from Florida’s Caloosahatchee River. In this study, Mote researchers will be examining the exposure of bull sharks to synthetic estrogens used in human birth control pills by tagging sharks with standard fish tags bearing passive sampling devices similar to personal exposure badges, which are commonly used to measure chemical and radiation exposure in humans. These devices are designed to accumulate environmental pollutants and, if the shark is recaptured, they can be used to examine the chemicals that an individual fish was exposed to. In addition, Mote scientists will also be measuring the uptake of synthetic estrogens and a number of other human drug-related compounds in juvenile bull sharks by measuring the presence and concentrations of these chemicals in shark blood, which can be sampled using non-lethal approaches.31

  The Florida Program for Shark Research is run out of the Florida Museum of Natural History. It states, with good reason, that its website ‘provides a rich source of information on sharks and rays and is the most highly utilized elasmobranch site on the World Wide Web’.32 It also runs the International Shark Attack File, the record of every known shark attack since the mid-1500s.

  Some regional shark conservation associations

  The Natal Sharks Board claims the honour of being ‘the only organization of its kind in the world’.33 It came into being in 1962 with the (then) sole aim of protecting bathers along the Natal coastline. In choosing nets, the South Africans were following the lead of the Australians, who had started protecting their beaches in the late 1930s.

  Most of the shark nets deployed by the NSB are 214 m long and 6 m deep and are secured at each end by two 35 kg anchors; all have a stretched mesh of 51 cm. The nets are laid in two parallel rows approximately 400 m offshore and in water depths of 10–14 m. A drumline consists of a large, anchored float (which was originally a drum) from which a single baited hook is suspended. Most beaches are protected either by two nets or by one net and four drumlines, but the quantity of gear varies from beach to beach. Durban, the largest coastal city and holiday resort in South Africa, has 17 nets, each 305 m in length, which cover all the popular swimming beaches . . . Shark nets do not form a complete barrier and sharks can swim over, under or around the ends of the nets. Neither, of course, do drumlines form a physical barrier. Both types of equipment function by reducing shark numbers in the vicinity of protected beaches, thereby lowering the probability of encounters between sharks and people at those beaches. The nets may have a limited barrier effect as well, but the fact that about one-third of the catch is caught on the shoreward side of the nets is evidence that such an effect is only partial.34

  A typical configuration of shark nets. Many sharks, large teleosts and marine mammals and reptiles become tangled in nets and drown. (Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries)

  Despite being ‘a service organization that protects beach users in KwaZulu-Natal against shark attack’35, the Natal Sharks Board has a strong conservation ethic and is closely networked to the global movement to protect sharks.

  The Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, founded in 1990, concentrates on gathering information about sharks in Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay. While this narrow regional focus is reflected in its small staff numbers, the foundation is linked to other research groups including TOPP (the Tagging of Pacific Predators), itself a project of the Census of Marine Life, a ten-year study being conducted by some 80 nations. By 2007, TOPP had tagged 2000 predators including sharks, elephant seals, leatherback turtles, albatrosses and sooty shearwaters. A great white tagged by the Foundation in October 2005 swam to Hawaii, returning to its tagging location a year later.

  Educational conservation organisations

  These range from small organisations such as the Bimini Biological Field Station off the coast of Florida, which specialises in marine biology internships,36 to international bodies such as the Shark Research Institute (SRI), founded in 1991 at Princeton, New Jersey, and now with offices in Canada, the Galápagos Islands, Honduras, Mexico, South Africa, Taiwan and the Seychelles, and a data-collecting site in Australia. The institute’s educational aim is:

  . . . to correct misperceptions about sharks and stop the slaughter of 100 million sharks annually. A primary conservation strategy of SRI is creating value for sharks as sustainable natural resources for tourism industries, particularly in developing countries. By so doing, a steady revenue stream is also generated for local fishers that might otherwise slaughter the sharks for immedia
te gain. Current programs involve visual and satellite tracking, behavioral and DNA studies of sharks, ocean advocacy, publications and public education.37

  The Canadian-based ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research was founded in 2001 with a strong bias towards elasmobranch scientific research and public education programs:

  The Centre maintains research equipment and facilities, reference collections of fossil and extant elasmobranch specimens, a scientific library, elasmobranch data bases, and public education materials. The Centre oversees the thesis research of selected graduate students as well as publishes results of its own original research and those resulting from collaboration with students or colleagues in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, co-organizes international scientific conferences, and [began] producing its own series of scientific reports in late 2003.38

  Conservation advocacy organisations

  The National Coalition for Marine Conservation was founded in 1973, by a group of Virginian fishermen. It describes itself as:

  . . . the USA’s oldest public advocacy group dedicated exclusively to conserving ocean fish and their environment. Our mission is to build public awareness of the threats to our marine fisheries, provide constructive solutions, and convince state, national and international fishery managers to take appropriate action to reverse the overfishing effects on marine fish . . . Simply put, large ocean predators aren’t finding enough prey to eat.39

  The coalition’s website lists ‘Our Achievements’, one being a 2001 lawsuit which led to the closure of 133 000 square miles of Atlantic Ocean to longline fishing.

  Advocacy for sustainable fishing is both understandable and praiseworthy, as is advocacy for the dive industry. The Project Aware Foundation describes itself as the dive industry’s leading non-profit environmental organisation. It came into being in 1989, its name derived from an acronymn—Aquatic World Awareness Responsibility and Education. It has offices in six countries and its members coordinate marine conservation activities, including elasmobranch protection, in many countries around the world. The foundation is an active supporter of the International Whale Shark Project (and welcomed the ban on sales of whale shark meat in Taiwan). It funds projects such as CoralWatch and annual shoreline and underwater cleanups. In Australia, where it is based at the University of Queensland, a Project Aware group undertook a 2007 cleanup. ‘The first task on the four-day visit was to remove fishing line and other debris from a site off Orpheus and Pelorus Islands. The volunteer team discovered so much line that they had to make two dives to collect it all.’40

  The Shark Trust, founded in 1997, is a highly active UK-based marine charity promoting ‘conservation through awareness . . . The Trust works through a series of scientifically supported campaigns, research and education programmes, and strives to provide guidance, facilitate decisions, influence legislation and raise awareness’.41 It is the UK member of the European Elasmobranch Association, and has also associated with other conservation groups in forming the Shark Alliance, a coalition of some 40 non-government organisations dedicated to the conservation of sharks. The alliance’s core mission is to tighten up European fishing policy because of its damaging global impact on shark stocks:

  Despite the immediate threats facing sharks, there are few limits in Europe on shark fishing, and quotas are routinely set far in excess of scientific advice. Europe is home to some of the world’s largest fishing fleets and its powerful fisheries officials exert influence on international fishing restrictions in many regions of the globe. As a result, poor European shark policies and enforcement pose threats to sharks not only in European waters but in other parts of the world as well. The EU is setting a poor example to other nations that may look to it for guidance on the regulation of shark finning. In 2003, the EU adopted a ban on shark finning but at the same time allowed glaring loopholes that render the ban all but meaningless.42

  Ocean Conservancy, founded in the mid-1970s and based in Washington DC, has regional and field offices across the United States and is active in many marine conservation areas, through its broad volunteer base. The conservancy’s slogan, ‘Start a sea change’, has brought it both status and a high profile. Its recent activities include vigorous lobbying to protect the small-toothed sawfish, whose American range has been reduced by a staggering 99 per cent. The conservancy

  . . . promotes healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems and opposes practices that threaten ocean life and human life. Through research, education, and science-based advocacy, Ocean Conservancy informs, inspires and empowers people to speak and act on behalf of the oceans. In all its work, Ocean Conservancy strives to be the world’s foremost advocate for the oceans.43

  The Zurich-based Shark Foundation/Hai-Stiftung, founded in 1997, is equally active, its guiding principle being ‘Sharks are not a threat to humans! Humans are a threat to sharks!’44 Its website has a shark death counter, tallying the annual rate at three per second. The foundation supports and funds many international shark conservation projects and is the Swiss member of the European Elasmobranch Association.

  Bite-Back is a United Kingdom-based conservation group dedicated to sharks. Formed in 2002, its primary goal is of reducing consumer demand for shark products. Its campaigns focus on restaurants, fishmongers, supermarkets and retailers selling shark meat, fins and cartilage pills. Bite-Back claims considerable success in its campaigns (many of which involve sending emails to targeted establishments) to have shark meat removed from British shops and restaurants. Members are encouraged to present its fact sheets to fish trade organisations.45

  The Marine Conservation Society is a British charity dedicated to ‘caring for our seas, shores and wildlife’, through campaigns for ‘clean seas and beaches, sustainable fisheries, and protection for all marine life’.46 Founded in 1983 by David Bellamy and Bernard Eaton, it raises funds through membership, donations and conservation projects. Its president is HRH the Prince of Wales, who in his speech to commemorate the society’s twenty-fifth anniversary, noted that among its environmental successes it had been instrumental in securing protected status for the basking shark. Prince Charles described the seas around the United Kingdom as being ‘overfished and awash with rubbish’.47

  Oceana, headquartered in Washington, DC, is dedicated to all forms of marine conservation. Oceana has offices across the US and in Spain, Belgium and Chile and is a powerful advocacy group with a record of achieving results. Its mission statement:

  Oceana campaigns to protect and restore the world’s oceans. Our teams of marine scientists, economists, lawyers and advocates win specific and concrete policy changes to reduce pollution and to prevent the irreversible collapse of fish populations, marine mammals and other sea life.48

  Securing goals through legislation—including a ban on finning at sea in US waters—enables Oceana to broadcast an optimistic message:

  In the last few decades we have seen the benefits of restored rivers and lakes—for ecological and economic health—in many parts of the world. We can reap the same benefits from healthy oceans. We can restore ocean ecosystems that will sustain us, entertain us, amaze us and generate jobs around the world for centuries to come.49

  There are many educational entities devoted to single shark species, for example, the Basking Shark Society, the South African White Shark Research Institute, FloridaSawfish.com and the Hawaii-based Tiger Shark Research Program. Some species benefit from the career dedication of individual researchers, not least Peter ‘Dr Hammerhead’ Klimley of the University of California Davis. Dr Eugenie Clark, America’s ‘Shark Lady’, pioneered behavioural studies of sharks in captivity. In Australia, Ron and Valerie Taylor have worked for decades in shark conservation and played key roles in the filming of the real great white sharks in Jaws.

  There are also countless groups and individuals in academic institutions across the world engaged in shark conservation research. To take but one recent example: at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, a team of scientists has been stud
ying shark spines of coastal species. Chemical trace elements deposited in the spines enable the researchers to determine movement patterns of shark species and therefore how their populations are connected. It is anticipated that the results of the research over a period of years will make possible ‘a stringent stock assessment to establish an appropriate level of sustainable catch for individual species or groups of species of shark’.50

  It is, perhaps, appropriate to conclude this chapter with yet another reference to Jaws—not to the film, not to the book, but to the book’s author, Peter Benchley. In 2007, the SRI (see page 260) inaugurated the Peter Benchley Shark Conservation Award, an annual award for outstanding contributions to shark conservation. The award was so named because:

  Peter Benchley was much more than our benefactor, colleague and friend, he was an eloquent advocate for shark conservation. In the 1970s, his fictional best-seller, Jaws (which Spielberg made into a blockbuster movie) generated a fear of sharks simply because so little was known about them. By the 1980s, that fear had given away to curiosity, resulting in an unprecedented amount of research on sharks. And so, in the 1990s, as sharks became target species for Asian markets, scientific data were available to combat threats to sharks—data which existed because of the fascination in sharks that Peter had sparked. Throughout his life, Peter remained a spokesman for sharks and an ardent shark conservationist. This award is given to honor Peter’s memory and ensure continuation of his conservation efforts on behalf of sharks.51

  The award was shared in both 2007 and 2008. The winners provide a fascinating snapshot of the complexity and range of issues and entities associated with elasmobranch conservation efforts: