Shark Overfishing off South Africa -- Archive

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Subject: Shark Overfishing off South Africa

Author:
Jim Morris

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Date Posted: 930987068PDT

Forwarded from Craig Ferriera who is involved with a white shark cage diving operation off South Africa:

This latest discussion on shark fisheries is as always interesting and down
heartening. When one considers the heavy shark fishing industry, and the
fact that sharks cannot keep up, one almost feels hopeless.

When we first began working at Dyer Island in 1990, our base was Gans Bay.
At that time Gans Bay had a thriving shark fisheries, which included
white sharks. The one fisheries in town was turning over 30 000 to 40 000
kg of shark per month, sometimes more. Even with these figures, some of
the fishermen were complaining that they were catching less than they were
used to.

At certain times of the year they caught many pregnant sharks. In fact,
there were times when most of the catch consisted of pregnant sharks. I
used to walk around inside the fisheries and would literally see hundreds
and thousands of baby aborted sharks.

I tried to reason with the fishermen and suggested that they release the
pregnant sharks, so as to ensure their and the sharks future. Their
response was that they preferred catching the pregnant sharks as they
weighed more, and thus they earned more from them.

The fisheries basically collapsed by 1995, and today they catch less
sharks in a month, than what they used to catch in a day in 1990.

The Department of Fisheries in South Africa do very little to implement
management and conservation measures with regards shark fisheries.

Craig

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