During European Shark Week 2009, over 300 activities were held in 15 European countries. Through these events, more than 93,000 people signed the petition urging Spain to end its opposition to improving the EU shark finning ban.

This year we need to keep the pressure on.

More than three years ago, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) called on the European Commission to strengthen the EU finning ban, which is currently fraught with loopholes and puts sharks at risk. Next year, the European Parliament will be asked to vote on a new regulation that the Commission members are drafting and will be issuing for consultation soon.

We need to ensure that MEPs, as our elected representatives, continue to press for what they called for more than three years ago and help close the loopholes.

The Shark Alliance will be working with MEPs to ensure their support and this October we want them to hear many other voices as well.

Save the 9-17 October in your diaries for European Shark Week 2010. Watch for more information on plans, ideas, materials and a call to action.

Parties overturn Committee decision to list porbeagle sharks under CITES Appendices and confirm rejection of similar action for hammerhead, oceanic whitetip, and spiny dogfish sharks

Doha, Qatar – 25 March, 2010: Today, in their final Plenary session, Parties to the Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted narrowly to reverse a previous Committee decision to monitor and regulate trade in the porbeagle shark and confirmed Committee rejection of similar proposals for the hammerhead, spiny dogfish, and oceanic whitetip shark.
 
“Today’s backsliding on porbeagle protection by the CITES Parties is deeply regrettable as are their previous decisions to reject trade safeguards for similarly threatened hammerheads, spiny dogfish and oceanic whitetip sharks,” said Heike Zidowitz, President of Europe’s leading association of shark scientists and the head of the Shark Alliance delegation to the CITES Conference. “These failures leave some of the oceans’ most vulnerable and heavily traded species at great risk from unregulated, international trade.”
 
The proposals to list porbeagle and spiny dogfish under CITES Appendix II were developed by the European Union while the United States proposed similar action for hammerheads and oceanic whitetip sharks.  The Pacific island nation of Palau co-sponsored all four proposals.  A two-thirds majority of votes is required for the adoption of such CITES proposals.
 
“Despite the setbacks, the CITES Conference debates have served to highlight the urgent plight of sharks and increase recognition of the role that CITES can play in their conservation,” added Zidowitz. “The member groups of the Shark Alliance will continue to promote CITES action along with science-based fishing limits as key elements of comprehensive shark conservation programs.”
 
The high demand for shark fins is a major threat to hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks while porbeagles and spiny dogfish are sought primarily to satisfy European demand for their meat.  
 
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), all the shark species proposed for CITES listing are classified as Globally Threatened under the IUCN Red List and meet the criteria for listing under CITES Appendix II.
 
Appendix II listings result in requirements for export permits and determinations that trade in a species is legal and not detrimental to the species’ survival.

Parties fail to accept proposals to list threatened hammerhead, oceanic whitetip, and spiny dogfish sharks under the CITES Appendices

Doha, Qatar – 23 March, 2010: The Shark Alliance welcomes Committee approval of a proposal to list the porbeagle shark under the Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) made today during a day-long debate on sharks.  The proposal to add the species to CITES Appendix II was offered by the European Union and co-sponsored by the Pacific island nation of Palau. 

“We congratulate the European Union for its tenacity and extraordinary efforts to ensure that international trade in the exceptionally vulnerable porbeagle shark is held to sustainable levels,” said Heike Zidowitz, President of Europe’s leading association of shark scientists and the head of the Shark Alliance delegation to the CITES meeting.

Parties voted on three other proposals aimed at listing spiny dogfish, oceanic whitetip sharks, and three species of hammerheads under Appendix II, but all failed to achieve the required two-thirds majority.

“While we herald the porbeagle decision, we are deeply dismayed that the other vulnerable and heavily traded shark species have been denied the global safeguards that are so urgently needed,” added Zidowitz.

The porbeagle proposal received 67% of the votes, with 86 Parties in support, 42 opposed, and 8 abstentions.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), all the shark species proposed for listing are classified as Globally Threatened under the IUCN Red List and meet the criteria for listing under CITES Appendix II.

Appendix II listings result in requirements for export permits and determinations that trade in a species is legal and not detrimental to the species’ survival.

The Conference of the Parties to CITES continues through Thursday this week.  Committee decisions can be revisited in final Plenary discussions over the coming days.

Notes to editor

The Shark Alliance is a coalition of 85 conservation, scientific and recreational organisations dedicated to restoring and conserving shark populations by improving shark conservation policies. www.sharkalliance.org. 

The Shark Alliance was initiated and is coordinated by the Pew Environment Group, the conservation arm of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-government organisation that is working to end overfishing in the world’s oceans. www.pewtrusts.org

Currently, 175 countries are party to CITES – and more than 30,000 animal and plant species are afforded protection through the CITES Appendices. CITES Parties convene every two to two-and-a-half years to amend the Appendices. Proposals to list, down-list or de-list species are proposed by Member governments and require a two-thirds majority for adoption.

For the International Union of Conservation’s definitions of the terms Endangered and Vulnerable please visit http://www.iucnredlist.org/documents/redlist_cats_crit_en.pdf

Marco Carè/Marine Photobank

“For the second time in three days, governments have put short-term political and economic interests ahead of sound science—first with bluefin tuna and now with red and pink coral,” said Kristian Teleki, SeaWeb’s vice president of science initiatives, who is attending the meeting. “Coralliidae are in desperate need of a mechanism that controls the immense trade in these species. CITES could have provided that, but today the representatives failed to heed the science showing these populations are in steep decline. It is now up to the jewelry and design industries, and their customers, to act where governments have failed.”

The call to list bluefin tuna under Appendix I was also rejected, although the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List classifies the species as critically endangered, and despite overwhelming scientific evidence that current levels of fishing of Northern Atlantic bluefin are unsustainable. At the 2009 International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) meeting, the catch limit was reduced from 32,000 to 13,500 metric tons, short of the ICCAT scientists’ recommendation to reduce the catch to 8,000 metric tons or less to allow the population to recover.

Wonderful photos from the making of Ocean movie:

http://www.coml.org/comlfiles/press/GalateeBrochure_14January2010.pdf

Endangered deepwater sharks, like the gulper shark, are being systematically targeted due to the rich store of squalene in their livers. This substance is being used to make an adjuvant, a compound that boosts the body’s immune response, in millions of doses of the pandemic H1N1/09 swine flu vaccine.

The World Health Organization recommends adjuvant-based vaccines, because they allow drug makers to create doses that use less of the active component, increasing available supplies. Although vaccines containing squalene have not yet been approved for use in the U.S., they are being distributed elsewhere in 26 countries so far, including Europe and Canada.

A major swine-flu vaccine producer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), announced in October that it had orders for 440 million doses of vaccine containing adjuvant derived from shark-liver squalene.

Mary O’Malley, co-founder of the volunteer-run advocacy group Shark Safe Network, estimates that GSK’s 440 million doses would require at least 9,700 pounds (4,400 kilograms) of shark oil, based on the stated squalene content of 10.69 milligrams in a dose. This estimate, however, assumes zero waste and no refining of the squalene once it’s been extracted from the sharks.

Gulper sharks have extremely low reproductive rates and this species is listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) Red List of Threatened Species, meaning the species faces a high risk of extinction. A female gulper shark takes between 12 and 15 years to reach sexual maturity giving birth to a single pup after a gestation period of about two years.

In 2006 the European Union imposed deep-sea shark fishing limits in the Northeast Atlantic, and the amount of shark squalene available on the market has since been reduced. However, some squalene suppliers, such as the France-based company Sophim, are actively soliciting fishers for these sharks.

Living at depths between 300 and 1500 meters, the deep-sea sharks that produce squalene are usually caught via bottom trawling, a most destructive fishing method that has been likened to chopping down a forest to catch squirrels.

Shanghai, Friday 18^th December: NBA basketball star and China’s most popular figure, Yao Ming, today launched a new stage in a hard-hitting campaign to save the world’s  rapidly dwindling shark population, featuring a new public service announcement (PSA) and major billboard campaign with international conservation group WildAid. Yao timed the launch to take place the day before the first game of the Shanghai Sharks basketball team, which he recently assumed control over.  

The PSA shows Yao in a restaurant with a giant aquarium being offered shark fin soup. Yao looks into the aquarium and sees real footage of a live tawny nurse shark dumped on an Indonesian reef with its fins removed to supply the soup trade. Yao and his fellow diners promptly push away the soup.

“This footage is definitive proof that sharks are being finned alive for soup,” said Steve Trent, Director of WildAid. “The spiraling demand for fin to be consumed for soup, mostly in China, is having a devastating impact on shark populations across the world. Key to halting the conservation crisis now facing sharks is to kill off the demand for shark fin, and this is why the action being taken by Yao Ming, who has led a host of others to join him, is so important. The message that he will no longer eat shark fin has great impact in China.”  

Fins from up to 70 million sharks a year are used for shark fin soup, often with the bodies of the animals dumped overboard dead or alive. Shark poaching is rife in marine protected areas, such as the Galapagos Islands and Cocos Island. In a recent study, the world’s top shark scientists (IUCN Shark Specialist Group) reported that of 64 species of open ocean sharks and rays 32% are ‘threatened with extinction’, primarily due to overfishing. In addition, 24% were ‘near threatened’, while another 25% could not be assessed due to lack of data. Sharks are highly vulnerable to overfishing due to their late maturity and slow reproduction. Globally, shark catches are unregulated or unsustainable. The shark fin trade is unregulated worldwide.

In China, there is growing opposition to shark finning. Yao Ming, a long-term supporter of the campaign, is joined by Chinese sporting and movie icons, as well as leading businessmen. Li Ning, who lit the Olympic torch and Liu Huan, who sang in the Beijing Olympics Opening ceremony, along with a number of gold medal Olympians, including Americans Tara Kirk and Amanda Beard, have pledged not to eat shark fin soup and have recorded public service announcements which have reached hundreds of millions of Chinese. The campaign has been featured on China’s CCTV networks featuring 20 Olympic gold medalists. Last month, 100 Chinese business leaders also joined the pledge, and the Chinese equivalent of eBay, Alibaba, stopped allowing sales of shark fin through their site.

The new Yao Ming message and billboards were supported by a grant from Sharksavers and are set for broadcast in China and around the world.

“We must urgently introduce controls and better management of sharks globally, banning trade except where it is can be proven to come from a properly-managed, sustainable fishery that prohibits the wasteful and barbaric practice of shark finning,” said Trent. “Sharks have been around for nearly 400 million years, but at the current rate of overfishing they could be wiped out in a single human generation.”

WildAid UK (Registered Charity No. 1126040) 1 Amwell Street, London, EC1R 1UL +44 (0)207 827 1242 www.wildaid.org

WildAid UK is a registered charity in the United Kingdom working for effective conservation of wildlife and natural environments, with special focus on wildlife trade.

WildAid is a US-registered public charity based in San Francisco with representation in the Galapagos Islands, Beijing and New Delhi, with affiliate Canadian and UK-registered charities.

Shark Alliance denounces illegal take of endangered, gentle giants

Barcelona: 16.12.09: The Shark Alliance is condemning the continued illegal take of basking sharks in Spain, evidenced this week by the display of a juvenile of the species at a supermarket fish counter in Santander.  The harmless, plankton-feeding basking shark, the world’s second largest fish, is classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as Endangered in the Northeast Atlantic.  It has been illegal for EU vessels to fish, retain or land basking sharks since 2006, yet authorities in Spain, the EU’s top shark fishing nation, are failing to enforce the regulation.
  
“The number of shark species protected in the EU is growing with good reason.  Recovery of threatened shark species depends on tough enforcement of these rules as well as prevention of future violations through education,” said Àlex Bartolí, Shark Alliance Policy Coordinator for Spain.  “In particular, all incentive to kill basking sharks, including profit or publicity, must be removed.  It is high time that Spain, a global force in fishing for sharks, took conservation of these valuable yet vulnerable animals seriously.”
 
In February 2009, the European Commission released its Shark Plan of Action which includes commitments to educate fishermen and the public about shark conservation measures.   In May 2009, two seven meter-long basking sharks were taken illegally from the waters off Valencia by one Spanish fishing vessel within the span of 24 hours.  
 
Mr. Bartolí is the author of the 2009 Submon publication, SPAIN: A driving force in shark fishing around the world, which details poor enforcement and lack of awareness of shark protections in his country.

For more information, media interviews or B roll, please contact:
Mona Samari, Tel: +44 (0) 7515 828 939, Email: mona@communicationsinc.co.uk

Brussels 15.12.09 The Shark Alliance applauds the EU Council of Fisheries Ministers’ decision to end all fishing for porbeagle sharks and reduce by 90% fishing quotas for spurdog, in line with scientific advice and proposals from  the European Commission.
 
“These dramatic  reductions in spurdog and porbeagle quotas amount to a solid performance on the first big test of the new EU Plan of Action for Sharks,” said Sonja Fordham, EU shark policy director for the Pew Environment Group and the Shark Alliance.  “Ministers have acted in line with the Plan’s pledge to follow scientific advice and a precautionary approach when setting fishing limits for inherently vulnerable sharks. Ending fisheries for critically endangered porbeagle and spurdog will allow European populations to recover while enhancing the EU’s ability to promote conservation of the species on a global scale,” Fordham said.
 
Most sharks and rays can be easily overfished because they grow slowly, mature late and produce few young. Porbeagle and spurdog sharks are included on the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered in the Northeast Atlantic.
 
The EU has proposed that porbeagle and spurdog sharks be listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) at the Conference of the Parties in March 2010.

Madrid (05.10.09): The Shark Alliance is welcoming Spain’s new ban on fishing for 11 species of hammerhead and thresher sharks, most of which are classified as threatened.  The landmark legislation, published today in the State Official Bulletin, is the result of consensus reached by conservationists, fishermen, and the Spanish Ministry of Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs in June 2009.  The government initially proposed ending only the minimal targeted, longline fishing for hammerheads and threshers, but the Shark Alliance and its partners successfully argued for more sweeping and meaningful rules.  Spain is the first EU Member State to limit catch of these species.

“The Shark Alliance applauds the Spanish government for acting to protect these exceptionally vulnerable shark species,” said Sandrine Polti, Shark Alliance Policy Advisor. “We are particularly pleased that the Ministry has agreed with our recommendations to prohibit all retention and sale of hammerhead and thresher sharks and to extend this rule to all Spanish fisheries,” Polti continued. 

Spain-based Ecologistas en Acción, SUBMON and CRAM Foundation are among the Shark Alliance’s 75 conservation, scientific and recreational organisation members.  The coalition was formed in 2006 to improve EU shark fishing policies. 

“We are hopeful that Spain’s new hammerhead and thresher protections represent first steps toward comprehensive shark fisheries management and signal the fishing power’s interest in leading rather than impeding effective shark conservation,” said Samuel Martín-Sosa Rodríguez, Ecologistas en Acción International Coordinator who led Shark Alliance efforts to reach consensus on the new rules. 

Other Shark Alliance recommendations for shark conservation, however, have gone unheeded.  In particular, Spain did not extend new protections to the porbeagle shark, a close relative of the great white that is Critically Endangered and yet still targeted off Europe, contrary to scientific advice.  Spain has the second largest share (30%) of the EU limit on porbeagle catch. Spain also rejected the coalition’s calls to protect other Endangered species, such as Mediterranean guitarfish and giant devil rays, and has yet to limit catches of the shark species targeted by Spanish fishermen: mako and blue sharks.   

“We will continue to encourage Spain to take additional groundbreaking yet urgently needed actions to safeguard vulnerable shark populations as well as the ecosystems and fisheries they support,” said Polti.

For more information contact: Mona Samari, tel: + 44 (0) 7515 828 939,    email: mona@communicationsinc.co.uk 

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The Shark Alliance was initiated and is coordinated by the Pew Environment Group, the conservation arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-government organisation that is working to end overfishing in the world’s oceans.  

The new prohibitions cover three species of thresher shark and eight species of hammerheads.  They ban retention, landing and sale, requiring that every specimen caught be released back into the sea, alive or dead.

http://www.boe.es/aeboe/consultas/bases_datos/doc.php?coleccion=indilex&id=2009/15857&txtlen=598

The Shark Alliance is represented in Spain by CRAM Foundation, Ecologistas en Acción, Kenna Eco Diving, Oceania Diving World, and SUBMON.  Representatives from these groups, in collaboration with Shark Alliance core staff, Greenpeace, and WWF-Spain, contributed to the public consultation process on the draft legislation by submitting joint comments and recommendations to the Ministry of Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs. 

In early June, SUBMON released a report titled, Spain a driving force in shark fishing around the world http://www.sharkalliance.org/publications.asp

A 2009 IUCN Report on the conservation status of pelagic shark and ray species http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/ssg_pelagic_report_final.pdf reveals that Spain takes more oceanic sharks than any other country and is fourth in the world for overall catch of sharks and rays.