Are Sharks Endangered?

On December 20, 2010 Congress passed the Shark Conservation Act. This Act prevents shark finning in US waters. Shark finning is the act of removing the fins of a shark and leaving the remaining carcass in the sea. This is a major step towards protecting sharks because annually 100 million sharks are killed commercially worldwide, while tens of millions of sharks are killed just for the fins. The result of these acts towards sharks puts 50 out of the 307 species of sharks on the vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered lists. Only the white, whale and basking sharks are protected under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Sharks represent the greatest percentage of threatened marine species on the IUCN Red list of threatened species. The threat sharks face from humans is drastically hurting them; they are vulnerable to pressure from humans because of the sharks slow growth rate and reproduction potential. Many of the shark populations have declined to the point where they are unable to perform their role as top predators in the ecosystem, causing drastic and possibly irreversible damage to the oceans.


http://na.oceana.org/en/news-media/press-center/press-releases/congress-ends-shark-finning-in-us

www.oceana.org/sharks.  

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The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation calls for the establishment of MPAs or Marine Protected Areas, which many experts believe may hold the key to conserving and boosting fish stocks. A powerful free market solution to overfishing may individual fishing quotas or IFQs. IFQs would include

• Government authorities cap the total allowable catch and then allocate quotas among fishermen, usually based on the historical catch.
• The quotas become a "property right" that can be bought and sold among fishermen -- helping to reduce fleet capacity.
• And because fishermen have access to a guaranteed share of the catch, they don't race to compete, fishing seasons lengthen, prices rise and fish stocks grow.
• Since the introduction of IFQs, the country has seen a 37 percent decline in the number of quota owners, mostly in fisheries that were overfished and had overcapacity problems.
• Its 2002 assessments of main fisheries show that 80 percent are at or above sustainable target levels.

• The overall market value of New Zealand's IFQ fisheries has more than doubled in real terms from 1990 to 2000, even as fish stocks have grown.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=4307
http://www.un.org/events/tenstories/06/story.asp?storyID=800

Why is overfishing a global problem?

Overfishing is a global problem because 52% of the world's fisheries are fully exploited and in danger of extinction. About 80% of the world's fisheries are fully to over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse. We are losing species as well as entire ecosystems. As a result the ecological unity of our oceans are under stress and at risk of collapse. We are at risk of losing a valuable source of food many depend upon for social, economical, or dietary reasons. For example in Newfoundland Cod fish was a very predominant source of food for the people. In 1992 the cod never appeared; overfishing caused the disaster of the cod industry. The fish can't recover and reproduce as fast as we are fishing them. Overfishing is a global problem because sources of food and ecosystems are being destroyed.

overfishing.org