- "China, Japan, Korea and Spain are among the countries
that legally catch sharks and cut off their fins before throwing them back
to the ocean. They then sell the fins, mainly in the lucrative Chinese
market."
-
- A shark that was once the most common warm-water oceanic
species in the world has virtually disappeared from the Gulf of Mexico,
a new study authored by Canadian scientists has found.
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- "Researchers in the 1960s suggested that oceanic
white tip sharks were the most common large species on Earth," said
Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist at Dalhousie University and co-author
of the study. "What we have shown is akin to the herds of buffalo
disappearing from the Great Plains and no one noticing."
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- Comparing data of accidental catch taken aboard commercial
fishing vessels in the 1950s and the late 1990s, the authors of the study
estimate that the population of oceanic white tip shark has declined more
than 99 per cent in the gulf, a figure that they say can be extrapolated
beyond the region.
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- "We're not dealing with a U.S. issue, we're dealing
with something much wider," Dr. Myers told globeandmail.com on Wednesday.
"All the indications are that this probably represents a similar decline
in the tropical areas of Atlantic," he added, noting the species are
also found around Cuba, the coast of West Africa, Brazil and the southern
United States.
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- In the cover story of the February issue of the journal
Ecology Letters, Dr. Myers and his Dalhousie colleague, Julia Baum, write
that the proportion of white tip and silky sharks caught on fishing lines
in the gulf had declined to 0.3 per cent from 15 per cent in the more than
40 years under study. The study was part of the Pew Global Shark Assessment,
a three-year, $1.5-million systematic inventory of sharks around the world.
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- Dr. Myers attributes the disappearance of the species
to the practice of catching sharks for their fins, the chief ingredient
in the Chinese delicacy shark fin soup. The soup, which takes two days
to prepare and can cost up to $100 a bowl, has an unremarkable taste but
is regarded as a status symbol.
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- In the United States, where direct fishing of open-water
sharks has been banned since 1993, most white tip shark killings are the
result of bycatch - accidental trappings in lines (up to 80 kilometres
long and containing thousands of hooks) that are intended to trap tuna
and swordfish.
-
- But shark fishing in international waters seems to be
the main cause of the decline of the white tip, which are known to migrate
hundreds of kilometres, Dr. Myers said.
-
- China, Japan, Korea and Spain are among the countries
that legally catch sharks and cut off their fins before throwing them back
to the ocean. They then sell the fins, mainly in the lucrative Chinese
market.
-
- "It's like cutting their arms and legs off - they
can't swim and they sink to the bottom of the ocean," Dr. Myers said.
"It's an incredibly cruel practice, and they're basically driving
the species extinct for a senseless luxury."
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- © 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
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