Good news from government shark scientists

[100days-a-year]

U.S.-Caught Sharks are a Sustainable Food Choice | NOAA Fisheries

Seems legit, while I disagree with finning or not fully utilizing any animals killed I don't have problem harvesting animals proven to be sustainable.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

I think it's legitimate in terms of those stocks recovering (the past two years I've been seeing more dusky sharks off Jupiter, which is a good sign); however I've spent a fair bit of time breaking down the numbers and in order to hit that mark they had to crank down hard on the commercial shark fishery. I'm kind of surprised it's worth it for anyone; a few months ago I was digging into Florida FWC's records and the listed value for all commercial shark landings in the state was something around $700,000 annually (about a 50-50 split between sales of shark meat and sales of shark fins). I'm wondering if that's reflected in the relatively low Atlantic commercial landings this year; they recently jacked the per-trip limit for Large Coastal Sharks up to 55 per trip: 2019 Atlantic Shark Commercial Fishery Landings and Retention Limit Update | NOAA Fisheries

The title also bothers me as it was a NMFS designation of sharks as an "under-utilized resource" back in the 1980s that decimated populations in the course of about a decade. It then took about two decades of stringent management to get things to where they are now. I'm kind of curious if that announcement was spurred by bills at the state and federal level to ban the shark fin trade, which by the numbers referenced above would further reduce the profit margin on shark fishing.

The picture is also not rosy across the board; the coastal sharks seem to be on the upswing but pelagics like makos, blues, and oceanic whitetips got hammered hard and they're not coming back anytime soon.

 

[chillyinCanada]

This mustn't be encouraged when we're trying so hard and with only limited success to stop finning.