Do you ever wonder why there are not many sharks left in the world?

Here is one of the answers.

 

I've always suspected that overfishing is the answer, and they mention this around 1:18. But c'mon, this video goes for 47:07...

 

I’ve seen more sharks, diving in Florida in the last 3 years, then the previous 25.

 

Some shark species are rebounding in our waters (great whites and tops) but the vast number of blue sharks I used to see here 50 years ago are gone. Sad.

 

The US's fishery management isn't perfect, but they actually enforce it so it seems to be working.

 

This video is as intense as the Sharkwater Extinction made by Rob Stewart. You don't have problem seeing almost 3-hour long Mission Impossible movie like Fall out, do you?

Over fishing is one thing. Taking just the fins (~ 5% of the body) and dumping the rest of the body still alive back to the sea, are like chopping the legs of lions and dumping them in savanna, let them rot. Such act is not sustainable. It will soon wiped the sharks out of the world. It is worse and wasteful.

 

I am also seeing rarely thresher shark. In the above Gordon Ramsay's Shark Bait video, the Costa Rican longline fishermen used the meat of Thresher shark (alter removing its fins) as the bait for fishing a meter long silkies.

 

Like Chilly pointed out, in NA, we can still serve shark fin stuff, but Canada has recently taken steps to ban importing fins, although it's not set to take effect for a bit. There has been many attempts to instigate this ban for years, but our large Chinese populations in Vancouver and Toronto have been able to kill it. Better late than never I guess...

Canada becomes first G7 country to ban shark fin imports

 

That is one of the reasons I go diving in Jupiter in the last 3 years. The other reason is to see Goliath Grouper (GG) spawning. They were in trouble about 20 years ago. They fished out almost to extinction in the 80's, until US government ban GG fishing in 90's. Now their number are making a remarkable come back.



I'm going back there again in August 2020, bringing 10 of my dive buddies with me. We plan to charter a whole boat for the diving trip, including muck diving under the Blue Heron bridge.