Shark populations are rapidly shrinking on a global scale, primarily because humans kill approximately 100 million sharks each year. As of January 2005, 66 shark species were listed as Critically Endangered, Endangered, or Vulnerable to extinction.¹

Since the 1990s, scientists have repeatedly provided warnings about shark population declines and emphasized the danger of eliminating such a large percentage of the ocean's predators. However, much of that information is not readily available to the public or is difficult to understand. To resolve that problem, we present the brief information below.

In January 2003, Julia Baum and a team of researchers from Dalhousie University published a short paper in the journal Science (Vol. 299, pp 389-392) entitled, "Collapse and Conservation of Shark Populations in the Northwest Atlantic." Baum and her team analyzed the logbook data of shark by-catch taken by U.S. pelagic longline fleets targeting swordfish and tunas in the western North Atlantic. Six shark species or species groups were recorded from 1986 onward and eight shark species from 1992 onward.

Using 15 years worth of data, Baum and her team found that the populations of all recorded shark species in the western North Atlantic had declined by more than 50% in the past 8 to 15 years with only one exception (Mako sharks). Scalloped Hammerheads, White Sharks, and Thresher Sharks declined by more than 75% during the same time period. Unfortunately, population declines have been noted throughout the Pacific as well.

The sharks slaughtered for shark fin soup do not necessarily originate near Asian waters, primarily because the shark populations in these areas have already been decimated. To be more specific, the sharks used today are often obtained as far away as Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands, and Africa, where enforcement of international law is lax or non-existent. According to Dr. Ransom Myers (the Killam Chair of Ocean Studies at Dalhousie University), "Sharks are in trouble worldwide. For these animals to survive, we need to reduce fishing efforts by half and have a global ban on shark finning." Dr. Myers and colleagues have recently published three papers on the subject in prestigious scientific journals.

This problem is not limited to places far from the US. In August 2002, the US Coast Guard apprehended a shipping vessel and directed it to San Diego, California. The boat contained 32 tons of shark fins, which represents between 14,000 and 29,000 sharks.² Finning has been illegal in U.S. waters since 2000, but regulating shipping traffic can be difficult. In a report delivered to Congrass, NOAA outlined several instances of US vessels participating in the shark fin trade, including vessels in California, Florida, Hawaii, and North Carolina.³

On 3 June 2005, a report released by the government of Japan at the Ninth Session of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) indicated that 120 Taiwanese vessels were recently conducting shark-finning operations near Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico, but the abundance of shark resources in the region had declined rapidly. The Taiwanese shark finners shifted their operations to the Indian Ocean in 2004 (near Pakistan and India shores). However, the tight surveillance activities by the Navies and Coast Guards of these coastal countries forced the shark finners away. The vessels then moved to the east coast of Africa where controls are insufficient, and these vessels were found to be poaching in the territorial waters of several coastal countries, sometimes within three or four miles from the coastline.

This information confirms what PRETOMA and many national and international organizations have been saying for years: shark finning vessels are depleting shark stocks on a global scale.

1. Redlist.org
2. WildAid - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/archive/2003/01/20/urbananimal.DTL
3. NOAA (p12) - http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/international/Congress%20Reports/03SharkFinRptCongress.pdf