wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  BBC 31 Aug 06
Shark-finning measures 'too weak'
By Elli Leadbeater

PlanetArk 31 Aug 06
EU Blamed for Demise of World's Sharks
Story by Jeremy Lovell

LONDON - Lax European Union policies play a leading role in depleting shark numbers not just in European waters but around the world, a report said on Wednesday.

Sharks are vital to the ecological balance of the oceans but, because of their slow growth rate and lengthy pregnancies, are also among the most vulnerable.

The Shark Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organisations dedicated to shark conservation, said not only did loopholes in EU regulations allow shark finning, but the few catch limits imposed were well above scientific recommendations.

"Europe is playing a lead role in the overfishing, waste and depletion of the world's sharks," the report said. "EU restrictions on shark finning remain among the weakest in the world and no overall plan to manage EU shark fisheries and restore depleted populations exists."

Shark finning -- slicing off a shark's fins for the growing Asian shark-fin soup market and discarding the body -- is banned by many countries which insist that bodies are landed with fins, the report said.

But it said EU rules allowed fins and bodies to be landed separately rendering the regulations "all but meaningless" and undermining finning bans on a global scale.

Species targeted by the finning trade include hammerheads, blues, makos, basking and dogfish, the Shark Alliance said. Even those sharks that were taken for their meat were being hugely overfished, it added.

While top quality shark meat could fetch up to US$10 per kg (US$4.50 per lb), fins were worth up to 70 times that, the report said.

Between them Spain, France, Britain and Portugal account for more than 80 percent of the European shark catch -- with Spain alone accounting for nearly half the EU total of 115,000 tonnes

Elsewhere, large numbers of sharks not wanted for either fins or meat were being killed as so-called bycatch -- fish caught by mistake in the hunt for other species.

"Overall, numbers of sharks are declining with many now seriously depleted and some species already locally extinct," the report said.

To stop the slaughter, the Shark Alliance urged the EU to tighten its rules, make sure fins were landed with bodies and bring total catch limits for more of Europe's 130 species of shark and related rays based on scientific evidence.

BBC 31 Aug 06
Shark-finning measures 'too weak'
By Elli Leadbeater

A report soon to be voted on by the European Parliament poses a significant new threat to vulnerable shark species, a coalition of green groups claims.

It fears changes will be made to EU legislation that aims to prevent the illegal practice of "finning". This involves chopping off the valuable fins of sharks and then dumping their carcasses overboard.

The coalition says proposals to alter the way catches are monitored will be open to abuse. It believes already weak legislation will be weakened even further, resulting in many more sharks being killed by European fishermen to supply the Chinese market with the primary ingredient for shark fin soup. The soup is a delicacy which restaurants can sell for up to $100 a bowl.

"Finning is a major factor in the unsustainable mortality of shark populations," says the Shark Alliance, a union of environment groups who aim to promote science-based conservation of sharks.

Landed ratios

At issue is the mechanism used by the authorities to determine whether vessel masters have landed a legal catch.

Fishermen are permitted to remove fins before returning to harbour to allow freezing of carcasses. The difficulty then arises of determining whether the weight of the fins landed corresponds to the weight of the carcasses landed.

The current regulations demand that the weight of fins as a proportion of the total catch does not exceed 5%. But Spanish MEPS have argued that this figure should be raised to 6.5% because the species of shark most often caught in European waters - the blue shark ( Prionace glauca ) - has relatively large fins.

They argue this means fishermen have to discard a portion of the fin to meet their legal requirements.

The conservationists, on the other hand, are concerned that new amendments would merely increase the potential for finning to go unpunished.

The Shark Alliance says the current 5% value, which is more lenient than that set by all other major shark-fishing countries, is already too high.

"If this recommendation was to be adopted by the Commission, it would allow for the finning of more than two out of every three sharks that are caught," says Sonja Fordham, the alliance's policy director. "Sharks are in dire need of responsible management. The finning ratio clearly needs to be lowered and not raised."

Asian trade

Many shark species found in European waters have been classified as endangered or critically endangered by the IUCN-World Conservation Union.

Sharks are particularly vulnerable because their population growth is very slow, with some species not giving birth until the age of 20 or above.

One-third of all declared shark-fin imports to the Hong Kong market now originate from Europe, with Spanish fleets supplying more fins than any other EU country. Portugal, the UK and France have also made significant contributions to the trade.

The Shark Alliance also recommends that fishermen be forced to land fins and the carcasses from which they are claimed to have come in the same port. "The EU is really having a wide-ranging negative effect on sharks around the world," says Fordham.
links
Related articles on Shark's fins
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com