Shark-Free Marina Initiative: 70 more marinas join in past week

And speaking of sharks, the Shark Free Marina Initiative (SFMI) is continuing to grow at a rapid rate, signing on marinas to promote pro-shark activities and attitudes to the recreational sportfishing industry, thereby putting pressure on shark tournaments and those seeking shark trophies - which are decidedly anti-shark at their core.

A press release from SFMI on Tuesday said, "Marinas on the east and west coasts of the United States are enthusiastically joining the Shark-Free Marinas Initiative (SFMI) to help conserve the world’s imperiled shark populations. Over 70 marinas have joined SFMI in the past week. There are currently over 200 marinas participating world-wide, including 164 in the U.S., 24 in Fiji, and 6 in Bahamas."         

SFMI started several years ago as an idea first promoted by SharkDiver.com.  When my friend, Luke Tipple, came on board as director, he enlisted my services to shoot the first promotional video for the organization.  From there, Luke garnered supporters and now it is managed by The Humane Society of the United States, the Pegasus Foundation, and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation with Luke still as director and with additional support from the Mote Marine Laboratory, the Pew Environment Group, and the Fisheries Conservation Foundation. 

"The SFMI is a totally voluntary program that works in tandem with businesses, marinas and fishermen to increase the awareness of the need to protect our sharks and oceans. Marinas and businesses may join the program as either Shark-Free or Shark-Friendly:  A Shark-Free Marina does not allow sharks to be killed and landed at its facility; a Shark-Friendly Marina discourages killing or landing of sharks and does not serve shark products or promote activities that intentionally harm sharks.

Marinas are major players in the recreational fishing community and can help inform fishermen and reduce the number of sharks being killed by joining the SFMI and preventing dead sharks from being brought back to their docks. 'Marinas are key to the success of this initiative in the United States,' says Luke Tipple, managing director of the SFMI."  

 

Some might question what impact sportfishing has on shark populations compared to large-scale industrial shark fishing.  With the number of shark species already in such great decline, particularly among species that are popular targets for sportfishing, the impact may not be cataclysmic but it is, nonetheless, real and worth addressing.

“Recreational fishing in the U.S. has contributed to the serious historical decline in shark populations,” notes Dr. Robert Hueter, senior scientist and director, Mote Marine Laboratory’s National Center for Shark Research. “Sustaining these species is in the interest of recreational anglers as well as commercial fishermen and marine conservationists.” 
  
So, congratulations to the Shark Free Marina Initiative!  I'm glad to have been there to help at the beginning and, hopefully, it will continue to expand and cumulatively have a positive effect not only on the number of sharks taken in sportfishing, but also on the attitudes of the participants whether they be fishermen or onlookers on the dock.


Source: Shark Free Marina Initiative News

Shark Conservation: CNN reports on sharks, their supporters and going shark-free

As a follow up to my Thursday post on CNN's report on ocean plastic pollution to air this Sunday, October 30th at 5pm and 8pm, also in the same program will be a segment on sharks and shark conservation efforts: Sharks: from predators to prey.

The segment will cover many of the issues that shark advocates have been promoting for several years, but it always bears repeating. Overfishing from commercial shark fishing operations, the high demand in Asian countries for shark products - particularly shark fins - and the critical role that sharks play as apex predators in maintaining a healthy and well-balanced marine ecosystem. These are the facts. Over-sensationalism, like rampaging sharks on the attack for humans at any opportunity, is what fuels misconceptions and provides fodder for a media looking for a quick headline. However, for the most part, CNN has done a pretty responsible job in putting forth the truth about sharks and the threats they face. So, kudos to the folks in Atlanta.

The shark segment on CNN this Sunday also looks at the Shark Free Marinas Initiative (SFMI) and its director, marine biologist Luke Tipple. Luke is a good friend and I've had the opportunity to capture him on film many times both above and below the waves, diving in open water with white sharks, tigers, and others, or talking about sharks and the Shark Free Marinas Initiative.

With location services set up by SharkDivers.com, CNN spent time with Luke in the Grand Bahamas where SFMI has a foothold with one of the island's most popular marinas catering to sportfishermen. Compared to commercial operations, the number of sharks taken by recreational sportfishermen is much smaller but at this stage of the game, the loss of any shark is a blow to the species' population. Recreational shark fishing tournaments are still being held each year and draw considerable worldwide criticism from conservation groups like The Humane Society - which supports SFMI. But when sportfishermen either opt for catch-and-release of sharks or choose not to catch them altogether, it can have an impact on an influential segment of the ocean-going public that can spread.

Here's a video preview of the CNN news report:


CNN's Sharks: from predator to prey airs Sunday, Oct. 30th at 5pm & 8pm PST (8 & 11pm EST) on CNN.
Learn about the Shark Free Marinas Initiative.

Shark-Free Marina Initiative: brochure available from expanding shark conservation group

Many readers of this blog have come across posts that mention the Shark-Free Marina Initiative (SFMI), an organization dedicated to the incremental but crucial and challenging step of ridding marinas of caught sharks. Supported by the Humane Society of America and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, SFMI has an informative website and now, as this recent press release below cites, there are informative brochures available for distribution.

Shark-Free Marina brochures introduce the membership campaign
14 October, 2010

Mid-October heralds the beginning of our SFMI membership campaign. As part of the campaign we've selected strategic marinas around the country to join the Shark-Free Marina Initiative. The first point of contact will be the new SFMI brochures which are now available. Beautifully designed yet highly informative they feature artwork generously provided by the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and scientific contributions from many of our advisers.

Click on the thumbnails for a larger view of the artwork and message. You may also use the link provided to download a PDF version.

As you read this post our brochures are speeding their way across the USA destined for 1500 marinas around the country. Their mission? To introduce the Shark-Free Marina Initiative to key marinas who have it in their power to significantly reduce the tens of thousands of sharks killed ever year by recreational fishing activity.

To receive a package of 10 brochures please write to staff@sharkfreemarinas.com and tell us how you plan to make an impact. We suggest talking to your local marina, dive shop, tackle store or classroom about the need to protect our sharks.

A very special thanks to all who were involved especially those who let us use their names, message and artwork.

Download a PDF version

8.5x14 - 4 Fold Brochure - Outside

8.5x14 - 4 Fold Brochure - Inside

Studying Pacific Blue Marlins: scientists enlist the aid of sportfishermen

Cruising throughout the warmer waters of the Pacific, the Pacific Blue Marlin is one of the most magnificent of the top or "apex" predators to roam the seas. But as with many other pelagic sea creatures, not much is known about them. A majestic mystery.

But that is slowly changing through the help of a seemingly unlikely source: sportfishermen. The Pacific blue marlin is a highly prized catch in ocean sportfishing; landing such a fish can entail hours upon hours of strenuous effort, making it one of the pinnacle goals of the sport. But rather than lose the fish to a trophy photo or dinner plate, the marlins are being released after being tagged with satellite tracking tags.

Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, home to the Global Tagging of Pelagic Predators (GTOPP) program, has been working for nearly a decade on tagging a variety of ocean predators, ranging from billfish - like the marlin - to tuna, great white sharks, and more. Headed by Dr. Barbara Block, GTOPP has uncovered migratory patterns that were heretofore unknown, such as the migratory patterns of white sharks traveling from the California and Baja coasts to a large area in the Pacific, dubbed the White Shark Cafe, and then back to their respective coasts year after year.

Working with sportfishing tournament organizations, such as the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament, GTOPP has promoted catch-and-release techniques that allow the researchers to tag the animals with electronic tags that can record a variety of information including global position, speed, and depth. Ultimately, the tags come free and upon reaching the surface, release their stored data to satellites for study by an anxious and waiting team of researchers.

GTOPP researchers just recently completed launching a series of ten tags on Pacific blue marlin caught as part of the Hawaii's big marlin tournament; an event called the Great Marlin Race due to the long distances that the marlin can cover. They are waiting to see what new surprises the tagged animals will reveal as they patrol the open sea.

In 2009, several tagged marlin traveled a distance of more than 1800 miles, from Hawaii to the Marquesas Islands. In addition to such a long distance, what made this remarkable to the researchers was the fact that the animals crossed the equatorial region, which is unusual due to its warmer surface temperatures and lower oxygen content - not a normally hospitable environment for a high energy-consuming animal like a marlin.

"The equatorial region is such a significant boundary for so many species, it was really surprising to see that three long tracks went right across it," said Randy Kochevar, Hopkins Marine Station marine biologist. "We don't really know a lot about the marlins' patterns and their behavior. It appears that rather than traveling to a particular place to spawn, and then spending the rest of the year feeding, like tuna, it seems like they are constantly spawning and they sort of come and go from place to place."

So, while some tagged predators have defined certain migratory routes or oceanic highways, like the white sharks traveling from the coasts to mid-Pacific, other animals appear to roam the seas, perhaps directed by yet undiscovered stimuli. Enlisting the aid of sportfishermen in events like the Great Marlin Race, can be an effective means to learn more about these important ocean predators while allowing the fishermen to engage in the most challenging aspect of their sport - and at the same time preserving the species rather than see it hanging tails-up from a local dock.

The Shark Free Marinas Initiative is another organization that encourages catch-and-release techniques for sportfishermen, politically avoiding a more confrontational approach (banning sportfishing altogether) by taking an incremental step toward shark protection and confrontation. While some people may debate the hooking and reeling in of sharks or marlins as unnecessarily cruel, it has proven itself to be one of the more effective methods for enabling scientists to tag and track these animals.

"What we hope to learn from this work," says Stanford marine biologist George Shillinger, "is basic information about these animals' life histories. We want to know where they go to feed and where they go to breed. We want to understand how they use the ocean in which they live and, ultimately, how we can manage their populations to ensure that they remain plentiful."

Read more about GTOPP and the Great Marlin Race at their website.
Read more about marlin tracking and see a brief video through Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station.

Shark Physiology: shark tournaments provide researchers with specimens and a moral dilemma

For marine biologists to better conserve and protect the creatures of the sea, they must understand them - their behaviors, their lifestyles, their physiology. To understand them from the inside out means having access to specimens for dissection and this poses one of the great moral scientific dilemmas: having to catch and kill the very animal you hope to protect.

Can this be done responsibly? Are there animals whose internal structures have been studied enough? Are there others resources for specimens available? In many cases the answer is "yes" but not for all. Sharks are one example. There's still much that is unknown about the inner workings of these important predators, but sharks decompose quickly so sharks found dead in the wild are not ideal for study. The same can be said of sharks commercially caught as bycatch or, if commercially sought after, that are immediately processed.

An article in the Cape Cod Times caught my attention as it addressed this issue by examining how researchers use shark tournaments as a means to gain access to suitable shark specimens. The article details how researchers from NOAA and other universities take advantage of the large, mature sharks that are caught to make quick dissections of their internal organs for study. The article is accompanied by a video showing the researchers at work during Massachusetts's long-running (and notorious to many shark advocates) Monster Shark Tournament.

I found the article and video to be very disturbing. Disturbing because it plays to that scientific moral dilemma that many shark advocates just don't like to think about. And for good reason. A 200+ pound mako is hoisted by its tail and brought onto the dock. People are commenting about how beautiful it is with it's cobalt blue body and sleek shape. It pained me to see it.

A large crowd is gathered to watch the festivities of sharks being hauled in. Is there a macabre fascination in seeing the infamous malevolent predator hanging unceremoniously by its tail; a vindication that, in the end, man conquers all? Fishermen are making toasts to their trophies, hoping to gain rewards - sometimes financially sizable whether offered legally or otherwise - and brandishing justifications that the shark meat will be provided to those in need. I can just see the child of a low-income family calling out, "Momma, mako steaks tonight!" Oh boy, shark fin soup - a favorite of the projects! Right. I get angry even as I write this.

But then there is the other side of the argument. The researchers, who are unable to afford boats and crews to go on selective fishing expeditions, are at least afforded some sort of access to fresh specimens for study. Tournaments that set specific rules regarding species, size and weight (favoring older, more mature sharks) garner a measure of favorable PR by providing researchers with the opportunity to do on-site dissections.

"While scientists can get some sharks from fishermen who catch them while targeting other species or from research cruises, large, sexually mature sharks are mainly seen only at tournaments. [NOAA biologist Lisa] Natanson credits tournaments such as the one in Oak Bluffs for welcoming researchers and for encouraging fishermen to land only large animals. Penalties are assessed for landed sharks that are under the weight limit, which is between 200 and 250 pounds, depending on the species.

'Without these tournaments, we'd have to go out and hire a boat and kill them ourselves, and that would be expensive,' said Greg Skomal, the state Division of Marine Fisheries' shark expert. Tournaments also offer college students the chance to do research necessary for advanced degrees. Skomal did his thesis on blue sharks with information gathered at shark contests."

Taking stomachs, intestines, livers, and other tissue samples, there have been some telling results ranging from parasites to diseases. As an example, the Cape Cod Times article sites three forms of cancer that have been found in adult shark specimens.

Shark advocates take note: CANCER HAS BEEN FOUND IN SHARKS, which debunks the belief that sharks resist cancer - one of the foundations behind the demand for shark products as homeopathic cures.

But still, I am troubled. There has got to be a better way. I support the efforts of organizations like the Shark Free Marinas Initiative, which gets marinas to cooperate by banning sharks from their docks and promote catch-and-release techniques. And researchers have taken advantage of catch-and-release tournaments to take blood and tissue samples, and tag sharks with transmitters before the shark is released at sea. Recognizing that an outright ban of all shark fishing is unlikely, the Shark Free Marinas Initiative is taking an important incremental step forward and away from senseless slaughter for the sake of a trophy kill.

However, for scientists, the need for whole specimens for dissection is still there, as we are continually learning more and more about these important but threatened ocean animals. It is a dilemma that is not lost on the scientists, as they have ambivalent feelings, too.

"While she [University of Hartford biology professor, Joanna Borucinska] appreciates the information she is able to glean from tournaments, Borucinska said she would not be saddened if they went away. The crowd cheered when a big thresher shark was hoisted overhead. But the sight brought her no cheer.

'I never get excited (about seeing a shark on display), especially a big one,' she said. 'I get sad.'"

Professor, you're not the only one.

Click here to read the Cape Cod Times article and watch the video.