Roughly a quarter of all shark, skate and ray species globally are threatened with extinction. In Canada, and globally, the number one threat to sharks is overfishing, which means fishing a species or population faster than it can be replenished.
photo: Tomas Kotouc
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With the longest coastline in the world, touching three oceans, it should come as no surprise that Canada is home to many sharks. There are 56 species of sharks, skates and rays (collectively known as elasmobranchs), which frequent the waters of Canada’s coast, and they can be found anywhere from the shifting waters of Bay of Fundy, to the frigid depths of the Arctic Ocean, to the kelp forests of the Pacific. The diversity of these species in Canadian waters is also worth noting; there’s the thorny skate, flat and prickly; the giant, gentle, filter-feeding basking shark; the ancient Greenland shark; the small but mighty spiny dogfish and many others.
Roughly a quarter of all shark, skate and ray species globally are threatened with extinction. In Canada, and globally, the number one threat to sharks is overfishing, which means fishing a species or population faster than it can be replenished. Sharks, skates and rays are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because they grow more slowly, live longer and generally reproduce at a slower rate than many other fish species; when a shark is killed, it takes a lot longer for that individual to be replaced than it would for a species that reproduces early, often and has a lot of offspring.
While issues like shark finning, which is the act of removing a shark’s fins and discarding the body at sea, have gained national attention, in Canada, our overfishing problem is a bit less visible in nature.
Zane Grey made his name writing adventure novels about the American West, but his real love wasn’t gunslinging or cowpoking; it was deep-sea fishing. He held 14 world records for catching saltwater fish, including the first billfish over 1,000 pounds landed with a rod and reel, a marlin he caught in Tahiti in 1930. But nothing compared to the shortfin makos he encountered off the coast of New Zealand in 1926.
Shark Week 2017 was off with a bang Sunday night with the much-hyped race between Michael Phelps and a great white shark. As expected, the shark won. But who’s winning in the bigger picture? The “sharks” (including sawfishes, stingrays, skates, mantas, ratfishes, etc.) make up a reasonably diverse group. Many species can swim faster than a person, but they tend to grow slowly, leaving them ill-equipped to respond quickly to modern day perils.
[VILAMOURA, PORTUGAL] – The 20th Special Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) concluded today. ICCAT members, including Canada as one of the 51 member governments, agreed to maintain the current quota for the western stock of Atlantic bluefin tuna. However, regarding the eastern stock of bluefin as well as measures for Mediterranean swordfish, and bigeye tuna, ICCAT Parties made decisions outside of the scientific advice.
