[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.
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.
Varadero, Cuba—The 38th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) concluded today in Varadero, Cuba. This year, expectations were high that NAFO Contracting Parties would take further measures to protect elements of the marine ecosystem and vulnerable sharks and skates, and environmentalists at the Ecology Action Centre, who attended as the only civil society observers, are pleased to see that some of these measures will be moving forward.
As the hot summer months are upon us, the annual event that is “Shark Week” is once again in full force. Some of us Canadians have been waiting a whole year for Shark Week, while others are interested because they simply need to fill the void created by the end of the sixth season of Game of Thrones. However, as we celebrate the legendary power and evolutionary success of sharks for a week, and consider the threat that human activity has posed and continues to pose to shark populations globally, it is important to recognize that, in many ways, Canada has fallen far behind many other countries in our work to protect our precious shark species.
