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  Yahoo News 9 Nov 06
Environmentalists warn of shark troubles

Yahoo News 9 Nov 06
Fishermen, facing declining stocks, turn to sharks
By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - Declining fish stocks mean that in some parts of the world fishermen are increasingly turning their attention to sharks, where a lack of regulation further threatens many species' survival, an environmentalist said on Wednesday.

Sharks are caught not only for their fins -- a popular dish at Chinese banquets -- but increasingly for their meat, said Sarah Fowler, co-chair of the World Conservation Union's shark specialist group.

Over-fishing threatens 20 percent of the world's 547 shark and ray species with extinction, the World Conservation Union -- also known as IUCN -- said earlier this year.

"It is a relatively recent phenomenon that as other fish stocks decline and become managed, sharks become increasingly important as an alternative catch," Fowler told a news conference in Beijing, where she was attending a shark conservation meeting.

"In Europe, as we see important fisheries like cod become increasingly regulated, fishermen can switch to shark and ray fisheries which have no management," Fowler added.

"On the high seas, as tuna stocks are depleted, sharks are becoming increasingly important in catches."

Only a few countries manage their shark populations, such as Australia and the United States, and regulation in the European Union is patchy or non-existent.

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization estimates 100 million sharks are caught each year, though experts say the real figure could be twice that, leading to a dramatic drop in the populations of some species.

Many sharks are caught just for their fins, which are hacked off by fishermen who then dump the dying sharks into the sea.

Sharks' fin, once offered as a gift to emperors, is traditionally served at Chinese wedding banquets and occasions when the host wants to impress guests with expensive and unusual dishes. Some also believe it is good for health.

"Perhaps the most important cause of declining shark stocks is the huge international trade demand for shark fin," Fowler said.

Agreements to manage shark catches to within sustainable levels -- and many species reproduce slowly -- are not being implemented fast enough, she said, adding shark stocks and perhaps entire species could be wiped out if fisheries management and biodiversity conservation tools were not used.

Researchers said last week the world's fish and seafood populations would collapse by 2048 if current trends in habitat destruction and overfishing continued.

Yahoo News 9 Nov 06
Environmentalists warn of shark troubles

BEIJING - Many species of shark are facing a serious threat to their existence because of worldwide fishing trends, environmentalists said Wednesday.

Fishermen "used to cut the lines and let sharks go," said Pete Kinghts, executive director of WildAid, a San Francisco-based conservation group, told a shark conservation conference.

In recent years, however, fishermen have kept the sharks to sell their lucrative fins.

One-third of the more than 500 shark species are threatened with extinction or are close to being threatened, said Sarah Fowler of the World Conservation Union.

"Fisheries can remove 50 to 90 percent of an entire shark (species) in only 10 years," said Fowler, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Fowler told The Associated Press later that the projections were based on an ongoing study by the Conservation Union's shark research group. She and other experts at the conference said governments and non-governmental organizations must work together to educate the public and fishermen about overfishing.

WildAid, which co-sponsored the conference, persuaded NBA star Yao Ming in August to pledge to give up eating shark's fin soup, a Chinese delicacy, as part of a campaign to promote wildlife protection in his homeland.

WildAid says China is the world's biggest importer of shark's fins, which conservationists say are cut from sharks that are thrown back into the ocean to die.

WildAid put the worldwide trade in shark's fins at 10,000 tons a year. Fowler estimated that 38 to 70 million sharks are killed each year for their fins.

"It is difficult to change people's dining habits, but we can educate and engage the public to achieve sustainable development of the sharks and people's dining culture," Li Yanliang, deputy general director of Agriculture Ministry's Aquatic Wild Fauna and Flora Administrative Office, told the conference.

Knights said that as the Chinese economy has grown, shark fin consumption has risen, exacerbating pressures on shark populations that were already vulnerable to overfishing because they breed so slowly.
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