What is it about?
The paper entitled “A United States shark fin ban would undermine sustainable shark fisheries” (D.S. Shiffman & R.E. Hueter, Marine Policy 85 (2017) 138–140) argues that The Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2017 (HR 1456) and its companion bill in the Senate (S 793), now before Congress in the United States of America, would be counterproductive. We demonstrate that the figures used in support of this claim are inappropriately selected, misinterpreted or incorrect, and that therefore the argument cannot stand. In the face of the extreme depletion of shark numbers globally, the paper fails to give an accurate or objective assessment of the situation.
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Photo by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash
Why is it important?
It is important to show why the sustainable shark fishing lobby is wrong. With 90 percent of fish stocks seriously depleted, sharks, along with tuna, have become the most lucrative prey. So industrial fishing fleets from nations around the world are now hunting those that remain. Anyone with a basic grasp of the principles of subtraction can see why this sort of factory shark fishing could never be sustainable in the face of the largely criminal shark fin trade, but pro-shark fishing industry advocates claim otherwise.
Perspectives
No wild animal can stand up to long term, targeted hunting--not fish, not whales, not turtles, and certainly not sharks.
Ila France Porcher
Independent researcher
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Response to “A United States shark fin ban would undermine sustainable shark fisheries” D.S. Shiffman & R.E. Hueter, Marine Policy 85 (2017) 138–140, Marine Policy, June 2019, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.02.058.
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