Conservation News
Environmentalists Sue to Protect Sharks from Commercial Fishing
By David Fleshler, [email protected]
Leaping to the defense of one of the least cuddly creatures on Earth, two environmental groups have gone to court to force the federal government to impose tighter restrictions on shark fishing.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Tampa, the Ocean Conservancy and the National Audubon Society accuse the National Marine Fisheries Service of caving in to the fishing industry by increasing quotas for sandbar, dusky, blacktip and other large coastal sharks.
The battle is taking place over species that were commercially irrelevant until the late 1970s. But with the opening of markets in China, where shark fin soup is a delicacy, U.S. exports of fins soared. And markets in Mexico and other countries provided outlets for the meat. Today, about 100 shark boats work the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, about half of them in Florida.
Despite their fearsome reputation, sharks have had a difficult time coping with the modern world of high-tech fishing. As top predators, they live for decades, mature late and bear few young. They can't quickly replace population losses.
"They're very vulnerable," said Sonja Fordham, shark conservation specialist at the Ocean Conservancy. "Yet they have this unfortunate reputation of being man-eaters or pests or trash, so there's just a low level of priority for research or management compared to more popular fish."
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