Many laws to protect sharks have backfired, researchers find
Many of the policies introduced around the world to curb the mass killing of sharks have backfired, in part because well-intentioned rules against taking the predators solely for their fins have led to an increase in demand for shark meat. study published Thursday.
Sharks have thrived on Earth for more than 400 million years, since before the dinosaurs. But a growing appetite for their fins in some Asian cuisines led to a slaughter that threatened several species with extinction.
The world responded. Starting in the 1990s, countries have introduced regulations to end the practice known as finning, which involves removing fins and discarding carcasses. Today, 70 percent of countries and jurisdictions have regulations to stop shark finning or protect sharks.
But the study, published in the journal Science, found that many of these policies, which required fishermen to land whole sharks, had unwittingly increased demand for their meat and that the expected decline in shark mortality had not materialized. realised. In fact, data shows that shark killings have increased.
“We should have seen a signal in reduced mortality,” said Boris Worm, one of the study’s authors and a professor of marine conservation at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “The surprising result is that we didn’t do that.”
The researchers spent three years calculating global patterns of shark fishing mortality and linking them to regulations intended to protect the animals. They found that more than 80 million sharks were killed by fishing worldwide in 2017, up from 76 million in 2012.
Nearly a third of the sharks killed were endangered species.
The researchers found that countries that introduced stricter rules to ban finning saw little impact on mortality. These policies also appear to have increased the overfishing of coastal species.
a Report 2021 of the World Wildlife Fund investigated the value of the world trade in sharks and rays. It showed the meat trade was worth $2.6 billion, surpassing the shark fin market, which was valued at $1.5 billion.
The findings of Thursday’s study not only underline the urgency for countries to develop better strategies to protect sharks, said Dr. Worm, but also the need for continuous assessment of the impact of so-called successful environmental policies.
Asian countries where people traditionally eat shark fins are no longer the main culprits. Spain and Portugal are the largest exporters and Brazil is one of the largest importers.
Brazil was one of the first countries in the world to ban finning. But as regulations took hold, so did the market for shark meat, which is often cheap, as the fish Brazilians traditionally eat became scarcer in the seas.
“The decline of traditional fish stocks opened the door, together with the demand for fins,” says Fabio Motta, a marine biologist at the Federal University of São Paulo. “Sharks ended up being the next big thing.”
According to surveys, most Brazilians don’t know they eat shark meat, mainly because stores sell it under a name that most people don’t recognize as an alternative term for shark.
But better management is possible, the study showed. Many countries that have established shark sanctuaries or passed other legislation to fully protect sharks have been successful in reducing shark mortality. Small island states such as the Bahamas and the Maldives, where people depend on healthy ecosystems for their livelihoods, were clear leaders.
So improving data collection Fishing can be better controlled and consumers knowing what they are buying can also help. Researchers say banning the retention of endangered and overfished species and banning the use of certain fishing gear could have major consequences.
But drafting new laws is not enough, says Laurenne Schiller, another author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa. Shark mortality was greater where enforcement capacity was lower.
Countries that succeed may find that shark protection policies help their economies. A 2017 study by Oceanaan ocean conservation nonprofit, found that shark tourism contributed $221 million to Florida’s economy the year before, more than 200 times what shark finning contributed to the entire U.S. economy.
The new research also found that shark mortality from fishing outside coastal waters, where international fisheries operate large fleets, had fallen by 7 percent. Researchers attribute this in part to regulations that banned trade in certain endangered species.
Yet a third of shark species are endangered today. Their demise would very likely endanger dozens of other ocean species, including those that people around the world depend on for food.
“All ocean ecosystems evolved with sharks in them because they are so old,” said Dr. Worm. “If we remove sharks from the ecosystem, we find that the stability of the system is jeopardized.”
Sharks, said Dr. Worm, are “a canary in the coal mine” for ocean health. “Because they are so sensitive, they can signal when something is wrong,” he added. “We would do well to listen.”