Shark Fishing vs Conservation: Analysis and Synthesis
The review of the status of sharks that I wrote with Professor Brian W. Darvell, Shark Fishing vs. Conservation: Analysis and Synthesis has been published Open Access in the journal Sustainability. With traditional fish stocks 90% overfished, sharks (along with tuna) have become the most lucrative prey for fisheries due to the value of their fins. So, with fishing scarcely profitable any more, fishing fleets around the world have joined in the hunt for them. The meat is pushed onto consumers using other names, so it is largely the shark fin trade that drives the so-called market for shark meat. As a result, those species of sharks and rays accessible to fishing fleets are approaching extinction. Further, the removal of these top and middle predators has resulted in drastic, long-term changes in oceanic and coastal ecosystems—a complete rebalancing. Yet most ecosystem changes remain unknown and are not taken into account by Regional Fisheries Management Organizations.