By Glenn Hodges
Photograph by Brian Skerry

Overfishing could be threatening shortfin makos, treasured by fishermen for their fight and their meat.

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.

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By Sonja Fordham
Photograph © Bryan Toro

Today, our blog comes from Sonja Fordham who directed Ocean Conservancy’s shark conservation work from 1991 to 2009. She’s now based just up the block from our DC headquarters, running Shark Advocates International, a non-profit project of The Ocean Foundation. Learn more about Sonja’s work from the Shark Advocates Facebook page and website: www.sharkadvocates.org. Sonja is live-tweeting about Shark Week programming; follow @SharkAdvocates for conservation policy tidbits and ideas for helping sharks of all shapes and sizes.

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.

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Photograph by Mark Conlin

[VILAMOURA, PORTUGAL] – The 20^th 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. ICCAT also failed once again to adopt meaningful conservation measures for sharks, though minor progress was made. The Halifax-based environmental organization, Ecology Action Centre (EAC), attended the meeting as observers for the 7th year in a row– and as the only Canadian civil society group present.

ICCAT agreed to a rollover of the quota for western Atlantic bluefin tuna, the population found in Atlantic Canadian waters, which will have a new stock assessment next year. Following the next assessment, countries will have new information on the health of the eastern and western populations with which to make decisions on quota in the future. ICCAT also committed to workplans for establishing harvest strategies for tunas and swordfish which, when implemented, can help simplify the decision-making process around quotas and ensure they are set according to a pre-agreed, science-based rule.

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Photograph by NOAA

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.

This year saw the long-awaited completion of NAFO’s impact assessment of bottom fisheries on vulnerable marine ecosystems such as corals, sponges and seapens. Among its findings, the assessment concluded that 84% of known concentrations of seapen areas remain open to bottom trawling. After much deliberation over the past week, an additional closure was agreed in order to protect vulnerable seapen communities, however this closure is only until 2018 when it will be reviewed.

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by the Ecology Action Centre‘s Marine Team
Photograph by Jeff Litton / Marine Photobank

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.

One important example of Canada’s lack of leadership on protections for sharks, is our continued rejection of a ‘fins-attached’ policy in our waters. For those who do not know, the ‘fins-attached’ policy is a policy that requires fishers who catch sharks at sea to keep the fins attached until they bring the shark back to land. Although not new, the policy has gained significant momentum within countries and international organizations in recent years.

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