A refrigerated warehouse in Pohnpei, FSM. To the left is a pile of finless shark carcasses, to the right a moonfish. In the background are frozen yellow fin tuna.
Refrigerated warehouses in harbours are not unusual. Nor are
piles ofdead fish waiting for export. What was strange was the
pile offrozen finless shark carcasses. Sharks are frequently an
'incidental'catch of the tuna fishing industry. Such sharks are
termed'bycatch', and for an incidental catch they're good luck.
Whilethe body of the shark is worth almost nothing, sets of shark
fins sellfor US$700 per Kg. That is 70 times the value of a kilo of
tuna.
An expensive, tasteless tonic
The fins are dried and sold for use in shark fin soup, a
traditionalChinese dish which sells for upwards of US$100 a bowl.
Hong Kongis the centre of the shark fin industry with 70% of the
world's sharkfins ending up there. As the Chinese economy improves
demand forsharks' fins is increasing by 5% a year.
Legal shark finning
For fishing boats with limited holds and long times at sea,
sharkcarcasses are a waste of space. Sharks caught as bycatch can
belegally stripped of their fins - so the bodies can be stored in
asmaller space, and the valuable fins dried fresh while still
atsea.
Illegal shark finning
Abuse occurs when sharks are specifically targeted, theirfins
removed and their bodies thrown back into the sea. This
practice,known as shark finning, is barbaric and wasteful. Often
the sharkis still alive, while its fins are hacked off with a sharp
knife,leaving it in agony. The shark's finless body is then dumped
overboardand, being unable to swim, it drowns or dies of
starvation. Although shark meat is low value compared to its fins,
it is stilledible and its liver and skin are highly prized in
certain parts of theworld. Shark finning targets only 2-5% of the
shark's body massand wastes the remaining 95%.
Shark finning around the world
Shark finning has been banned in the European Union since 2003,
and isillegal in the US and Eastern Pacific. However, there are
someserious loopholes in the legislation. The amount of sharks
caughtincidentally varies according to fishing method and
circumstance. So, it is impossible to determine exactly how many
sharks have beencaught unintentionally. For Longline fishing
vessels - which set a lineup to 100km long, baited with up to 3,000
hooks - incidental catchranges from almost nothing to around 20%.
For Purse-seiners40-50% is typical. When fishing vessels come into
ports such asPohnpei, they must show their logbooks,-a record how
much of each fishspecies they have caught - to officials.
If the weight of shark carcasses is within the expected range
for thefishing method, the haul is assumed to be incidental
bycatch. Afurther loophole surrounds the issue of the fins being
cut from theshark's carcass. Obviously, there should only be one
set of fins percarcass. However, the assessment is made by weight,
not number.
Determining whether the finning is legal or illegal
The weight of the fins as a proportion of body weight varies
betweendifferent species of shark. The World Conservation Union
(IUCN)estimate shark fins comprise, on average, 2 % of body
weight. This means one would expect 20kg of shark fin for every ton
of sharkcarcass. The US allows up to 5% total shark weight to be
fins - thismeans that for sharks with a low fin to body weight,
more than oneshark could be illegally finned and dumped for each
declared shark.Earlier this week the European parliament rejected a
call by itsFisheries Committee to increase the EU's legal ratio of
fins to carcasses form 5 to 6.5%. This wouldhave allowed more than
two-thirds of sharks caught to be undeclared -opening a back door
to the shark finning industry. The EuropeanParliament is now
calling instead for a decrease in the ratio toa scientifically
acceptable 2%.
The story in Pohnpei
The refrigerated warehouse in Pohnpei belonged to a Hong Kong
basedcompany called Luen Thai. In addition to over 60 finned shark
carcases,the warehouse contained a few hundred frozen yellowfin
tuna, 6 marlinand 2 moonfish. I spoke to one of the workers, who
told me thatthe company runs 13 Longliners. Each stays at sea for
about 3weeks, catches around 300 tons of tuna and in the process 2
tons ofshark. The products section of Luen Thai's website lists
four speciesof tuna and eleven commercially valuable species of
fish that arepresumably frequently caught as bycatch.
The mystery
Legal shark fining is brutal, but no more so than commercial
fishingand with incidental catch rates of 0.67% it has little
commercialvalue. Moreover, shark carcasses reek and are almost
worthless - so,why keep over 60 of them in a refrigerated warehouse
on the harbourfront? Curiosity got the better of us, so we asked
the guys workingthere what they were going to do with the sharks.
Initially no onecould come up with an answer, then they said the
carcasses were goingoverseas somewhere, perhaps to be made into
fish balls. Withtransport costs being as high as they are this
didn't seem plausible.
By the time Maarten turned up with the video camera, the
managers hadarrived. They explained that the freezer was broken
and that theyplanned to move the sharks. This made no sense, if the
freezer in thewarehouse was broken, why not rescue the high value
tuna, moonfish andblue marlin? Instead the men set to work shifting
over sixty worthlessshark carcasses to a refrigerated van. The
extreme responses toour cameras, suggest another motive.
Could the shark carcasses be resident incidental bycatch,
alwaysavailable to counted against fins caught illegally? Perhaps
the 2 tonsof shark was a reference to the weight of fins collected,
and not totalweight. This is not so unusual. Earlier this year
twoSpanish Longliners landed 8 tons of shark fins in Suva,
Fiji. With an estimated value of US $5.6 million this far exceeds
the valueof the tuna they would have caught.
Unexpected impacts
Illegal shark finning has a detrimental impact on ocean
ecosystems;sometimes with a direct impact on fish stocks. Many
sharks are toppredators and as such their eating habits keep the
structure andspecies composition of marine ecosystems in balance.
Removal ofsharks from an ecosystem can have complicated and
unexpected results.For example, it has been found that the removal
of tiger sharks from atropical ecosystem resulted in a decline in
the tuna population. The decline was because the sharks had kept
populations of otherpredators of tuna in check.
Eradicating shark finning is humane, beneficial for sharks,
forfisheries management and for all of us who depend on the health
of ouroceans. It is yet another example of the needless waste of
ocean life, and the need for properly enforced marine reserves.
Watch the 'at the scene video'...
Shark Alliance
Our friends at Shark Alliance are dedicated to restoring and conserving shark populations. Read more on their website.
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