Sharks had already lived on this planet for 200 million years when dinosaurs appeared. And now, due to a heavy impact of human predation, sharks are slowly disappearing, the audience was told at a recent symposium in Stockholm.
There are many misconceptions about sharks, the experts observed, but one aspect needs to be enforced: sharks are playing a pivotal role in maintaining the balance of our oceans ecosystems and need to be protected.
The October FishBase symposium on sharks provided a very comprehensive display of information on shark biology and presented evidence on poor legislation measures to protect this unique species. The session closed with a Stockholm premiere of The End of the Line, a film based on a book by Charles Clover where he describes how over-fishing is changing the world and the way we eat. The meeting closed with a panel discussion moderated by Hans Ackefors. The panel included representation from The End of the Line – Executive Producer Christopher Hird; PEW Environment Group – Uta Bellion; WWF Sverige – Inger Näslund; and Greenpeace – Staffan Danielsson.
World renowned American ichtyologist, Eugenie Clark (86), The Shark Lady, an expert on shark biology and behaviour, opened the meeting with a beautiful presentation on sea monsters and other deep sea creatures she was able to study during her breathtaking career. She talked of the various shark species she was able to study, and freely swim with many years ago. She described the destructive practice of “finning”sharks, and pointed out that onboard finning is extremely cruel, since after the body is thrown back overboard, the shark continues to live on the bottom of the ocean for a considerable amount of time without being able to swim (sharks can live without feeding for up to six months!).
Heiko Bleher, an international fish expert and explorer, followed up with a noteworthy, and humorous, presentation on the sawfishes, their biology, and evolution with particular focus on fresh water sawfish. He even outlined how he travelled in a big container of a Boeing 747 luggage compartment, trying to keep nine freshwater sawfish alive with continual doses of warm water boiled by flight attendants. The sawfish eventually arrived in Berlin, but only seven of the nine survived the ordeal.
With an overall focus on the European Union, Shark Alliance’s Sonja Fordham warned that sharks are particularly vulnerable to overfishing due to their special biology; slow maturation, long gestation periods, and few offspring. Less and less sharks are able to live out their full (and long) life cycle due to the pressure coming from fisheries, no international catch limits, and poor control measures. Without sharks in our waters, which are at the top of the marine food chain, we may see a dramatic decrease in some fish species, such as the one seen in tuna after the removal of tiger sharks in a tropical ecosystem, she warns.
Within the European Union (EU), poor EU shark policy is to blame for high shark mortality. The main issues within the management of sharks in Europe is the problem of targeting mature females, weak finning bans (fraught with loopholes), and finally, lack of priority given to shark protection in general. In the global perspective, the European Union is a major player in world’s shark catch, consumption and trade. It is responsible for nearly 30% of world imports of shark related products. Sweden, for instance, imports shark products from Europe and New Zealand.
There are currently fifteen shark species in Swedish waters, but only some of them are under protection, with nearly half threatened due to overfishing. In general, only 35% of shark species are red listed under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, with only 44% of Baltic sharks included.
Iwona Roman