The Year of the Shark 2019 is Ending
What we see is that sharks are being targeted by international
factory fleets around the world who trail millions upon millions of
baited hooks through their realm, trawl the sea floors for rays, skates
and other bottom dwellers to 4000 metres, and slaughter them by the
millions. Sharks are the only profitable prey remaining, now that ninety
percent of the original (fish) fisheries are fished out.
Thanks to the shark fin trade, the shark has become one of the most
valued animals, with the result that these top predators are being
targeted even by fleets that used to toss them out as trash. Their meat
is thrust onto the markets and sold by different names; there is such a
surplus that it is being used in everything from dog food to make-up.
Further, the meat of sharks is toxic. As top predators, they
accumulate high levels of mercury, lead, and other poisons during their
lives and they should not be taken for food. Even hunters would not
recommend that we turn to eating wolves and cats instead of chickens and
cows.
An ecological catastrophe has resulted from the shark fin market.
Sharks are the worst off of all vertebrate animals while having high
ecological importance as top and middle predators.
And in spite of all of our efforts, and those of shark
conservationists around the world, shark killing continues to escalate
and there is less hope for them now than ever.
If history has taught us anything, it is that no animals can
withstand targeted, mechanized, industrial hunting—not whales, not
turtles, not fish and not sharks.
The Fisheries industry spins tales about this robbery of Nature being
‘sustainable,’ even while one shark species after another reaches the
point of critical endangerment.
Yet Fisheries management, apparently afflicted by some territorial
idea that sharks belong to them, continue to claim that they retain the
right to fish sharks, even though they have already caused the loss of
an estimated ninety percent of sharks globally. Their talk is bombastic
and rhetorical; they sound as if they are addressing their buddies over
beers in a bar, and they never mention what happened to all of the fish.
Or explain why we, the people, should now let them kill all of the
sharks.
These are the same people, who, just years ago, were killing sharks
and throwing them away, declaring that they were nothing but “trash.”
Now they want to profit from the shark fin trade and recreational shark
fishermen are on the same wagon.
But according to the biggest global studies of shark depletion,
Fisheries’ management has failed this entire line of animals. The shark
biomass of all species required to support the documented shark fin
trade was estimated to have exceeded the catch Fisheries reported to
FAO, (the only organization that keeps track of the figures globally) by
three to four times.
The suffering of fish was established nearly twenty years ago; they
may actually suffer more intensely than we do. Yet, Fisheries, as a
multi-billion dollar industry, has managed to take control of the
public’s perception of these animals, as well as the animals themselves.
As a result, in spite of the facts, fish have not been protected by the
anti-cruelty laws that have protected mammals, birds and reptiles. In
Florida, for example, you are guilty of a felony if you are caught
fighting dogs or birds, but it is legal and considered culturally
admirable to hook sharks through their mouths or guts and fight them to
death. The recreational shark fishery in the USA is the largest in the
world.
And the conclusions and recommendations of the fishing industry and
its spokesmen are always in favour of fishermen—not fish, and not
sharks.
However, sharks are not owned by shark fisheries, but by the
ecological systems that evolved them. They are the children of the
eternity that has passed since our planet filled with life, and we have
an over-riding responsibility to protect sharks, marine animals, and
wildlife in general, and keep their ecosystems in good health—in
trust—so that future generations will enjoy the continuation of our
bountiful planetary biosphere.
The priorities now should be to remove increasingly large areas from
Fisheries access through the establishment of Marine Protected Areas,
and at the very least to have sharks protected from international trade,
which is the protection given to sea turtles. Since the protection
afforded by CITES listings is opposed by shark hunting nations, given
one species at a time, and fails to protect the animal from death, it is
not working. There is no reason why the decision could not be made to
protect all sharks. A ninety percent depletion of their numbers is
already too much.
The effort to weaken the shark fin trade is vital, through the
banning of commercialization of fins and encouraging consumers to change
the recipe of the fatal soup and stop buying shark fins.
The World Bank published a study entitled “Sunken Billions” in 2009,
and an update in 2017. It found that unsustainable Fisheries management
practices have led to globally depleted fish stocks that produce $83
billion less in annual net benefits than would otherwise be the
case—ninety percent of fisheries are over-exploited. To address this
global crisis, the main requirement is that fishing effort is
diminished, while at the same time, fish stocks must be rebuilt, and
coastal ecosystems returned to a state of health.
This study specifies that little is known about the actual carrying
capacity of most fish stocks that are subject to commercial
exploitation, and in spite of what it claims, Fisheries’ data are often
highly uncertain.
Sunken Billions predicts that social unrest will result from the
necessary reduction of fishing effort that must come, because some
fishermen will have to turn to other occupations.
So the current outcry from the shark fishing industry in the face of
shark conservation efforts has been predicted, and is understandable,
but indefensible.
The World Bank recommends that the fishing subsidies that have
facilitated over-fishing in the past be used to ease this social
transition.
Priority should be given to local fishers who depend on the sea for
their protein. Western consumers, who are already eating too much
protein, would just choose something else if fish were not on the menu.
These are wild animals, and with the human population already so
bloated, and growing fast, no wild animal should be expected to support
us.
The international trade in shark fins has wasted billions of animals
for a bowl of luxury soup prized in just one of the world’s cultures.
This fact is an illuminating example of just how wasteful and arrogant
human demands can be on planetary resources.
(c) Ila France Porcher
December 31, 2019
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