Shark Words

With the loss of at least 90% of sharks worldwide, it would seem to be urgent to protect the ones that remain. Every global study of their status has reported a more dire situation than the last, and that the targeted hunt for the shark fin trade is responsible for their catastrophic depletion. Only one third of shark species are considered safe, and the most threatened are those accessible to fishing—those within about 1000 metres of the surface, or, for seafloor dwellers, 3000 metres in depth. Shark fins are among the most expensive seafood products. The total declared value of the world trade in shark products is close to US$1 billion per year and it is associated with much illegal activity, including murder. To supply it, intense shark fishing spans all oceans. Yet, as top predators, sharks have incalculable ecological importance and their removal has grave effects on the ecosystems where they live, as failures cascade down through the inter-tangled networks. Yet, shark...

With co-authors Dr. Brian W. Darvell and Professor Gilles Cuny, I recently published a paper in Marine Policy: Response to “A United States shark fin ban would undermine sustainable shark fisheries” D.S. Shiffman & R.E. Hueter, Marine Policy 85 (2017) 138–140 It showed that the authors had used incorrect figures in order to promote shark fishing in the USA in their paper and had also minimized the shark fin trade and the dangers of eliminating the oceans' top predators. The same authors reacted by publishing another paper which essentially said the same thing, except that it claimed to be a rebuttal of our paper, and made several incorrect statements about it — their paper was essentially a thinly veiled personal attack. Similarly, we became aware that those authors, who appear to be incapable of making any kind of intellectual argument, have been personally attacking us openly elsewhere on the Internet. So with my co-authors, I wrote a Letter to the Editor to make su...