Hammerhead shark by Suneko

Shark Advocates International is giving a warm welcome to progress towards helping conserve sharks. This progress was made at the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) this week.

There were a record number – six to be exact – proposals for shark measures, the parties of the ICCAT agreed to put a stop to the retention of oceanic whitetip sharks, prohibit exploiting of hammerheads, and set up a process for punishing countries who do not get with the program and accurately report catches and reduce fishing pressure on shortfin mako sharks. The proposals to stop the retention of abundant thresher and porbeagle sharks were thrown out as a measure to help ICCAT gain a stronger position to ban shark “finning” by prohibiting removing the fins of a shark at sea.

“ICCAT has taken significant steps toward safeguarding sharks this week, but much more must be done to effectively conserve this highly vulnerable species,” explained President of Shark Advocates International, Sonja Fordham, who serves on the US ICCAT Advisory Committee and has participated in ICCAT meetings since 2004. “We are particularly pleased with the agreements aimed at protecting oceanic whitetip sharks and reducing international trade in the fins of hammerhead sharks, as well as US efforts to conserve mako sharks.”

It’s good to see that progress is being made, and all parties involved are rather pleased that the meetings have gone so well so far. Hopefully, this means a better world for sharks.

The Turkish government has set their own very high catch limit for endangered Mediterranean bluefin tuna without showing any regard for internationally agreed quotas and the survival of this already severally overfished species. By telling the Turkish fishermen to conduct this type of overfishing, the Turkish government is effectively killing the future of this important domestic industry.

Turkey currently operates the largest Mediterranean fleet fishing for bluefin tuna, a commercially important species that – if properly managed – could continue to create jobs and support fishermen in the region for years and years to come. Mediterranean societies have a long tradition of fishing and eating bluefin tuna and this species was for instance an appreciated food fish in ancient Rome. Today, rampant overfishing is threatening to make the Mediterranean bluefin tuna a thing of the past.

Management of bluefin tuna is entrusted to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), an intergovernmental organisation. Last year, the Turkish government objected to the Bluefin tuna quota that was agreed upon at the ICCAT meeting in November and is now ignoring it completely.

The agreed tuna quota is accompanied by a minimum legal landing size set at 30 kg to make it possible for the fish to go through at least one reproductive cycle before it is removed from the sea, but this important limit is being widely neglected as well. Catches below the 30 kg mark have recently been reported by both Turkish and Italian media.

To make things even worse, Mediterranean fishermen are also involved in substantial illegal catching and selling of Mediterranean bluefin tuna. This year’s tuna fishing season has just begun and Turkish fishermen have already got caught red-handed while landing over five tonnes of juvenile bluefin tuna in Karaburun.

According to scientific estimations, Mediterranean blue fin tuna fishing must be kept at 15,000 tonnes a year and the spawning grounds must be protected during May and June if this species shall have any chance of avoiding extinction in the Mediterranean. This contrasts sharply against the actual hauls of 61,100 tonnes in 2007, a number which is over four times the recommended level and twice the internationally agreed quota. The crucial spawning grounds are also being ravished by industrial fishing fleets.

By blatantly ignoring international quota limits, the Turkish government is in fact threatening not only the tuna but also the future livelihood of numerous Mediterranean fishermen, including the Turkish ones.

I thought I would report on a few good news in the world of marine conservation. First of we are going to look at tuna fishing and the endangered Mediterranean Blue fin Tuna. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) an organization consisting of NGOs and governments surprisingly voted to cut tuna quotas in half (almost) in the Mediterranean as well as instituting a complete fishing ban during the spawning season in May and June when they meet at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona. The surprising result came after Spain (an important fishing nation) and Japan (the key blue fin market) supported the restricted fishing to prevent the tuna population from collapsing. The IUCN Decision is not legally binding but puts a considerable amount of pressure on the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) which will decide the future of tuna fishing for the coming years at a meeting in December. The effects of diminished quotas remain to be seen as a rapport from the WWF earlier this month showed that half all tuna caught in Italy was caught illegally and that illegal fishing was rampant in Italy.

I am going to leave tuna and talk about something completely different, Beluga whales. The US government this week listed the Beluga whales of Alaska’s Cook Inlet as an endangered species / population. The decision means much stricter rules about what can and can’t be done in the area and local authorities need to get the permission of the National Marine Fisheries Service before they can approve a number of activities in the area. Governor and GOP vice president candidate Sara Palin is worried that the decision will prevent economic growth in the area. She fears that the decision among other things will prevent the expansion of the harbor. The population declined nearly 50 percent between 1994 and 1998 and has not yet recovered. This is believed to be due to developments in the area, predation from killer whales and frequent whale strandings. Environmentalists hope that the new found protection will help increase the population again.

Beluga whale

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) estimates that 51 percent of all the Bluefin tuna caught in the Mediterranean during 2007 was illegal and unauthorised. According to the commission, the total catch for last year was 61,000 tones – a sharp contrast to the agreed quota of 29,500 tones. The commission is now warning for a complete collapse of the tune stocks in the Mediterranean, unless drastic measures are put into action.

According to the commission, the recovery plan implemented over the past two years by tuna fishing countries has failed to improve the poor state of the tuna stocks. If the Mediterranean tuna stocks collapse, it will not only be a catastrophe from a conservational perspective; it will also have serious consequences for all those who get their livelihood from tuna fishing in the area.

“Scientists have made the situation clear and now it is necessary for ICCAT and all the states involved in blue fin tuna exploitation to act in order to halt the decline and prevent a collapse“, says Xavier Pastor, the director of Oceana, an organisation that works to protect the world’s oceans. “Drastic measures should be adopted, such as closing the Mediterranean tuna fishery from June to August, the blue fin tuna’s reproductive months.”