New shark limits

New shark fishing limits are on the way



Jim Waymer • Florida Today • June 20, 2008


Federal fisheries managers announced Thursday a new rule to lower significantly the fishing quotas for sandbar, porbeagle and other large sharks to rebuild depleted species.



The new rule, which will publish in the Federal Register on June 24, lowers the sandbar shark annual commercial quota from 1,017 metric tons to 87.9 metric tons. The porbeagle shark quota would lower from 92 metric tons to 1.7 metric tons per year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also plans new regional quotas for the other large coastal sharks, which will be set at 390.5 metric tons in the Gulf of Mexico region and 187.8 metric tons in the Atlantic region.

The new shark rules take effect starting on July 24.

The new rules require all sharks to be offloaded at the dock with all fins naturally attached. That provision is to improve enforcement against shark finning, where fishermen remove the highly valuable fins from sharks at sea and discard the rest of the shark carcass overboard.

The rule also will improve species-specific data collection for future stock assessments, NOAA officials said.

Under the rule, all fishing for sandbar sharks will take place as part of a shark research fishery with about 10 commercial fishing boats participating each year. Details about the research fishery can be found in a separate Federal Register notice that also will be published on Tuesday.

The new rules were necessary, NOAA officials said, because latest stock assessment found the sandbar sharks were depleted and the rate of fishing was too high. Sandbar sharks are targeted for their fins. They are one of the most commercially valuable shark species in the Atlantic Ocean, making up an average of 60 percent of the large coastal shark landings.

“Our recent stock assessments show we need to take strong conservation measures to stop overfishing on sandbar and other sharks to allow these species to rebuild,” Jim Balsiger, acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service, said in a prepared statement. “These sharks, like many sharks, mature late, grow slowly and produce few young, making them particularly vulnerable to fishing pressure.”