International group sparks debate with sweeping measures to protect sharks: 'We are overexploiting the species'

Newly adopted international measures designed to protect sharks should help several species, but critics worry that one could be left behind.

Sharks are often captured as bycatch — unintentional catches in fishing nets — during tuna fishing expeditions, and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission made protecting the marine animals a focus, Mongabay reported.

An estimated 100 million sharks are killed each year, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Along with bycatch, millions are killed through finning, where people remove shark fins and put the animals back in the ocean to die.

In its attempt to help, the IOTC included more species within shark-retention bans, restricted certain fishing gear, and enacted stronger reporting requirements for all caught sharks. The organization also ruled that all sharks brought to shore must have their fins naturally attached to their bodies to prove they were not finned.

Shortfin mako sharks, however, were not included in the full retention ban. Instead, boats will be allowed to keep the fish if they are already dead by the time they're brought into the boat. Certain fishing gear that's proven detrimental to makos will also continue to be allowed.

"Sharks won for the very first time at the IOTC, except the shortfin mako," Iris Ziegler of the German Foundation for Marine Conservation told Mongabay. "For shortfin mako, it was a disaster. We are overexploiting the species, and it may never recover."

Sharks are among the large predators that can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted each year by storing carbon in their bodies. They also feed on smaller, plant-eating fish, helping preserve some of the kelp and other marine plants that store carbon.

Scientists have actually floated the possibility of introducing reef sharks, and other large predators, into certain environments to help meet carbon-removal targets within the Paris Agreement.

The IOTC also decided to later review a 2024 assessment that said yellowfin tuna are no longer being overfished. In particular, the group expressed skepticism about the data used within that assessment.

"We have significant concerns over the seemingly miraculous recovery of the stock, given the decade of unrelenting overfishing that preceded the IOTC's most recent yellowfin stock assessment," Jess Rattle of the Blue Marine Foundation told Mongabay. "It is essential that these issues are resolved and that the assessment is reviewed and revised accordingly."

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