At least 1.3 million sharks, many endangered, were caught in the Atlantic in 2008 by industrial-scale fishing with no catch or size limits, according to a tally released Monday.
The actual figure may be several times higher, according to a study carried out by Oceana's advocacy group on the sidelines of a meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).
While global attention has focused on the plight of Atlantic bluefin tuna, many species of high-value sharks are in dire straits, marine biologists say.
"Sharks are virtually unmanaged internationally," said Elizabeth Griffin Wilson of Oceana. "ICCAT has a responsibility to protect predators from the oceans."
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, sharks must be managed by international bodies.
Of the 21 species found in the Atlantic, three-quarters are classified as endangered.
North Atlantic populations of the whitetip shark, for example, have declined by 70 percent, and the hammerhead by more than 99 percent, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Other species – including the porbeagle mako and the common mako, which have also been overexploited, and may be on the verge of extinction.
Many are fished for their fins – prized as a delicacy in Chinese cuisine – and then thrown into the sea, dead or dying, once the bites of their choice have been cut.
The practice is banned, but loopholes in the regulation have allowed the ban to be largely ignored.
Oceana and several conservation groups, with the support of some governments, have called on ICCAT to establish catch quotas and other protective measures for sharks and other vulnerable groups.
The United States has proposed requiring all sharks to be returned to land whole, which would increase enforcement of the finning ban and help scientists measure population levels.
Japan – which annulled an agreement earlier this year to protect four shark species threatened under the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – is now urging ICCAT to ban fishing for one of them, the oceanic whitetip shark.
The initiative "is an example that demonstrates our commitment to the conservation of shark resources," the head of the Japanese delegation said in an opening statement.
Sharks have reigned at the top of the ocean's food chain for hundreds of millions of years.
But accomplished predators are especially vulnerable to industrial-scale overfishing because they mature slowly and produce few offspring.
Tens of millions of endangered sharks are mined from the world's seas every year.
Regional studies have shown that when shark populations are modified on a large scale, they affect millions of species along the food chain, often in unpredictable and harmful ways.
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Authors: Val
