Safe haven or supermarket: shark populations decline while we wait
20 Aug 2008
WWF is urging the Federal Government to make 'the Serengeti of the Sea', Australia's Coral Sea, a safe haven for threatened sharks and hundreds of other marine species.
"Every day we wait for a decision to make this biodiversity hotspot a marine protected area we are losing our ability to protect extremely important species," said Dr Gilly Llewellyn, head of WWF-Australia's Oceans program. "For many shark species, their future is either an underwater safe haven or a grocery store."
The latest figures for Australian shark exports obtained by WWF and released today show that more than 500 tonnes of shark product was sent to mostly Asian markets over the past 13 months. These numbers do not include the amounts of sharks imported into Australia, discarded as by-catch or caught and consumed in domestic markets.
Overseas retailers and manufacturers snap up around 230 tonnes of shark fins, 23 tonnes of squalene, an ingredient often used for cosmetics, 46 tonnes of shark liver oil, 12 tonnes of shark cartilage powder, and thousands of kilograms of meat from sharks fished in Australian waters.
Using AQIS data from the past 13 months, the major export hubs for sharks appear to be Melbourne and Brisbane, with Cairns port sending 60 tonnes of shark fin to Asian markets.
Melbourne, the major export centre for shark products, sends 37 tonnes of shark fins bound for Philippines and 46 tonnes of shark liver oil mostly for Japanese markets. Twenty-three tonnes of squalene is sent from Melbourne.
In Brisbane, 85 tonnes of shark product, mostly shark fin and fillets are sent to Hong Kong and the Phillipines, and shark cartilage exported to the US.
"We risk going down in the history books as the generation that let sharks go extinct because of an insatiable market for shark products," Dr Llewellyn said. "Sharks play a crucial role in the balance and health of marine ecosystems and are especially vulnerable to overfishing, and yet currently there are few effective controls on fishing or trade. Sharks are slow-growing, long-lived, and produce few young."
Sharks caught in the Coral Sea, the Great Barrier Reef and major northern Australian fishing spots, may well end up as sharkfin soup, haemorrhoid cream, lacquer and glue, tourist curios, tanning lotion, horse supplements, preservative for boats, anti-aging cream, luxury sharkskin boots, shark heart sashimi, petfood and, even as an alternative cure for cancer.
"One of the most important decisions we can make on behalf of this critically important species is to fully protect pristine areas like the Coral Sea and pupping and nursery grounds in the Great Barrier Reef so that shark and other marine animal populations can recover," Dr Llewellyn said. "By exporting shark fin, without guaranteeing the future for at-risk species of sharks, Australia continues to be part of the problem and not part of the solution."
"The best time to protect what we can from exploitation is right now. The Coral Sea is a rare example of a marine environment that is thriving, one of the world's last great underwater wildernesses, it's our responsibility to protect it," Dr Llewellyn said.
For more information
Jacqueline McArthur, Cohort Communications
03 5489 3225, 0408 626 780
Dr Gilly Llewellyn, WWF-Australia Oceans Program Leader
02 8202 1227, 0406 380 801
Rachael Hoy, WWF-Australia Press Office
02 8202 1242, 0407 204 594
Notes to editor
- Using 400 kg, an extremely conservative size for large sharks, and with a fin to body mass ratio of 5%, then 230 tonnes of shark fins would equal more than 10,000 adult sharks killed for export. This is an extremely conservative number. Figures more than likely would far exceed this.
- The total value of tourism out to the Coral Sea is approximately $11.2 million a year.
- The resident population of sharks at Osprey Reef, the main dive site in the Coral Sea, is 40 animals, making each shark worth over $250,000 per year. When you compare this figure to $62.50 - the asking price for shark catch by local fisheries, it is more than evident Australian reef sharks are more valuable alive than dead.
- The median number and biomass of sharks entering the shark fin trade each year have been estimated at 38 million individuals and 1.7 million mt, respectively1, according to the 2006 Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets, Clarke et al. 2006. Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets. Ecology Letters9: 1115-1126.
- Recently declared a 'predator diversity hotspot' for its abundant shark populations, the Coral Sea is recognised as one of Australia's last tropical marine wilderness regions.
- Stretching from the outer boundary of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to the edge of Australia's territorial waters - in some places more than two hundred nautical miles off the Queensland coast - a protected Coral Sea would create the largest Marine Protected Area in the world.
- For more information: www.wwf.org.au/coralsea
Shark fin display
© Samuel Lees
Shark fin display
© Samuel Lees
Shark fin shop
© Samuel Lees
