Trends in global shark catchand recent developments in management

TRAFFIC’s focus on shark catch has been prompted by the growing international concern for the status of shark stocks. This concern stems from the recognized vulnerability of sharks to overfishing because of their slow growth and their relatively late age of maturity and low fecundity. In addition, many species of sharks are top order predators and play an important role in marine ecosystems and it is only through the adoption of ecosystem-based management (EBM) principles, including the application of the precautionary approach, that shark species can be managed sustainably and unintended ecosystem effects avoided.

The need for better management of sharks has been expressed by organizations including the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the FAO, the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). In 2000, the FAO developed the International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks (IPOA-Sharks). However, implementation of this voluntary plan through the development of National Plans of Action (NPOAs) has been patchy, in terms of both the number of countries adopting NPOAs and the quality of those plans.

Despite the high level of international concern, approximately 17% of shark and ray species are now listed in the Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable categories of the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN, 2008) and a further 47% are listed as Data Deficient (Polidoro et al., 2008)

Analysis of trends in catch, and those responsible for that catch, therefore remains a critically important element of attempts to promote better management of sharks. Ideally, such assessments would also be species-based. However, the species-specific data reported to the FAO on global shark catch is limited and this restricts the extent to which a meaningful assessment of trends in catch of particular shark species can be made from the FAO database. Interpretation of trends in global catch data is also affected by changes in the nature of management practices for sharks and associated species, changes in the nature and level of reporting of shark catch to FAO and changes in abundance of shark stocks. As a consequence, it remains very difficult to draw definitive conclusions about trends in global shark fisheries globally from the data available. The analysis of the available data presented in this paper must be considered in that context. 

The FAO’s database has recently been updated to include 2007 data and TRAFFIC has repeated its analysis to identify the top shark-catching countries. However, a revised methodology has been adopted to minimize the impact of inter-annual variability in shark catch on the group of top shark-catching countries. It is hoped that this methodology will result in a more meaningful identification of those countries that consistently account for the highest proportion of reported global shark catch.