“I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine”
How the false narratives around sharks threaten their survival
Sharks are an ancient species that have been roaming the planet for around 400 million years.
When they first evolved in Earth’s waters, tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates) were only just making their way onto land. Plants and insects hadn’t long been around and reptiles, flowers, and grass had yet to show up.
Sharks have survived six mass extinction events and outlived dinosaurs, making them one of the most successful and enduring species on the planet. But today they face their biggest threat yet: us.
The portrayal of sharks in the media has been cited as a significant reason they are still seen in such a negative light, and I myself am guilty of having once misjudged them. Their rows of razor blade teeth, lifeless eyes, and ominous slinking through the water has always made me incredibly nervous and to this day I avoid swimming in open water for fear of what may be lurking1 below.
Sharks are misunderstood thanks to their reputation, but in reality cows are statistically more of a threat to humans. Granted, a shark's tendency to bite people doesn’t help their case, but does that mean they deserve to die in their millions?
What is the shark fin trade?
Every year, the shark fin trade alone kills more than 73 million sharks globally. Caught as bycatch, both legally and illegally, it has led to a 71% decline in shark populations in the last 50 years.
While overfishing also contributes to this decline, shark finning is uniquely barbaric. It involves hauling a shark onto the deck where its fins will be removed, with the carcass then dumped overboard. The sharks, who are often alive when all of this happens, will be left to drown or be eaten as its body sinks to the ocean floor. The savageness of this act and rate at which it happens across the world, is horrifying. And by taking only the fins, fisheries can save on space and increase profits.
Not all shark finning happens in this way. Some management policies see small-scale fishers partake in shark fishing where the entire animal carcass is caught, and must return to land with all fins intact so the whole animal can then be exported for its meat, including the fins. ‘Fin to carcass ratios’ is another method which allows fisheries to remove fins at sea and store them separately to the carcass but both must be retained. And at least a third of countries have laws against shark finning on sustainability and animal welfare grounds – that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s illegal though2.
However, due to the corruption of fisheries involved in the trade, lines are easily blurred and captains have been caught storing smaller carcasses with larger fins that don’t match up. The system is abused to such an extent that poorly paid deckhands (who often spend years at sea on obscenely long contracts) are being dragged into dangerous, illegal work while captains increase their profits from the excess catch. Both sharks and humans suffer on these boats as human trafficking and other human rights abuses are often perpetrated on these same vessels.
A fleet within one of China’s biggest tuna fishing companies was exposed as the biggest culprit of illegal shark finning of recent times. And the country’s absence from the UN’s list of the top 20 shark-fishing nations is what ultimately gave away their illegal trade as they have the most fishing boats and consume the most shark fins. A recent operation uncovered that the Chinese fishing company Dalian Ocean Fishing had been using banned fishing gear to deliberately catch sharks. Just five of the company's mass of longline boats had 5.1 tonnes of dried shark fin stored onboard in 2019 which is more than the total declared catch for China’s entire longline fleet in that area. All in all, a disaster for shark conservation.
Rachel Hopkins of The Pew Charitable Trusts said it best: “(This risks) sustainability, threatens scientists’ understanding of the status of shark populations, and puts responsible fishing operations at a competitive disadvantage.”
It’s not just China who’s to blame either, as the EU also plays a major role in the global shark fin trade. An IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) report shows that 188,368 tonnes of shark-fin products were imported into Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan across a 17 year period, of which the EU were responsible for almost a third. “From 2017 onwards the EU’s role increases and accounts for almost half of the shark fin imports in 2020 (45.42% in 2020).”3
But illegally obtained or not, shark finning is regular in China as it secures the vital ingredient for shark-fin soup. I could make a joke and say it wouldn’t be shark fin soup without it, but these soups are apparently so bland that chicken stock is added to the soup anyway. The cartilage of fins is merely used for texture rather than taste. There’s also a risk of mercury poisoning, with sharks being at the top of the food chain on a strictly fish-diet, therefore their bodies often bioaccumulate the toxic metal. Even without this awful trade, sharks remain highly at risk from overfishing, as demand for their meat and by-products is on the rise.
As apex predators sharks are critical to ocean ecosystems – maintaining balance by keeping the population of species below them in the food chain in check, they also remove the weak and the sick, encouraging a healthier ocean overall. Their mere presence spooks sea turtles and stops them from demolishing seagrass meadows and stops smaller predators from munching on too much of the algae that allows coral reefs to thrive. So their slightly frightening appearance is actually a win for us, as animals are deterred from overfeeding on the underwater plants which sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere!
So what can be done to stop it?
Conservationists have long been fighting for an outright ban on shark lines and wire leaders used by tuna fisheries and in 2022 their hard work finally paid off. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (the international body in charge of tuna fisheries there) outlawed both types of gear4 which industrial-scale fishers often use to target sharks. Shark lines and wire leaders are banned in some waters but this ban marked the first time an organisation overseeing fishing in international waters has outright banned their use, potentially setting the precedent for other international bodies to follow suit. Experts argue that to effectively stop the shark fin trade governments also need to enforce an increase in observers onboard, better in-port and at-sea inspections, and the use of the coastguard for at-sea patrols of fishing vessels.
Ultimately, the operators of a fisheries shipping fleet and the governments that permit their operation, are those with the power to stop the global shark fin trade. Governments must attain greater control through the suppression of the loopholes in their marine regulations and ensure catch is accurately reported. The US Shark Conservation Act 2010 enforces a ban on shark finning at sea as all sharks must be landed with their fins intact, this prohibits back-alley deals and allows accurate data to be collected on shark species and their population levels. Policies like this, known as Fins Naturally Attached (FNA) policies, combined with tighter government controls on the fisheries sector is the simplest way to slow the illicit behaviour in this barbaric trade. The overfishing of sharks may be allowed to persist5 under these particular regulations, but the mass slaughter will be significantly reduced with stronger at-sea and in-port mandates on finning.
And yet, one study suggests that despite an increase in shark finning bans over a seven-year period, shark mortality actually rose by 4% in coastal fisheries. This is equal to a staggering 4 million additional sharks killed annually, with 95% of these deaths occurring in national waters. The bans, while successful in addressing the wasteful practice of finning, inadvertently created new markets for shark meat and other products in countries that previously hadn't consumed sharks. Paper bans have led to alarming increases in shark deaths in tropical coastal hotspots like Indonesia, Brazil, Mauritania, and Mexico. However, while certain tropical coastal hotspots have seen an alarming increase in shark deaths due to a lack of sound fishing regulations, retention bans and strict management in open-ocean fisheries have shown promise, reducing shark fishing mortality by about 7%.
Clearly, one size does not fit all when it comes to shark conservation. A multifaceted approach is needed, combining top-down management with community-level initiatives, particularly in countries where small-scale artisanal fisheries contribute significantly to shark mortality. Unsurprisingly, strong governance within countries is associated with lower relative shark fishing mortality, highlighting the potential impact of more robust management practices.
Effective implementation of the above is crucial to ending the shark fin trade but correcting our negative attitude towards them might help to speed up the process. 100 million sharks are killed by humans every year whilst less than 10 humans are killed by sharks. Sharks are intelligent, inquisitive creatures. Regardless of whether the negative connotations that surround them is the reason they’ve been subjected to such brutishness, our narrative of them as mindless eating machines does more damage than we know.
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Amie 🐋
Words like ‘lurking’ and ‘infested’ also don’t help.
More examples of shark finning management policies can be found listed here: https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acv.12265
Shark lines help to hook larger predators like sharks rather than other kinds of fish, and wire leaders increase the chances of retaining the shark once it is caught as they can’t bite through the wire.
As painful as that is to say.
Hard to believe the reason they take the fins is for a soup that they put chicken stock in and that it's only used for the texture! So frustrating/disappointing to hear.
Jaws was probably the worst PR ever for an animal in recent history. I did swim with great whites off the coast of South Africa once and I was surprised when they didn't give a shit about me and they were just doing their own thing. Reading your newsletter has taught me how important they are. Thank you for your work Amie.
Imagine surviving SIX mass extinction events… Only to bump into us. 😬 “…A 71% decline in shark populations in the last 50 years”, my goodness. This makes me think of that meme of a great white shark beside a scuba diver, captioned “A photograph of one of the most dangerous animals on earth. Beside it, a great white swims peacefully.”