Maybe I was inspired by the Discovery Channel last month, or maybe it’s due to how many I see when I’m on the Louisiana coast doing field work, but this month I’ve decided to look more closely at the plight of sharks in the world’s oceans (and maybe this is just an attempt to face some primal fear I have…).
I know there are issues with regard to harvesting sharks for shark-fin soup, and I think there has been general persecution of sharks, in the same way that large terrestrial carnivores have been targeted because of the threat and competition they represent, but I feel like there must be more to the story than that. Given the kind of global population declines I’ve heard mentioned (reaching as high as 90%, which is pretty hard to ignore), I feel there must be other threats facing these animals, although maybe not- maybe we are doing a pretty thorough job of removing them from the oceans just through fear and appetite.
Atlantic sharpnose shark, one of the species common near the coast
I spend a lot of time on barrier islands in Louisiana during the spring and summer for field work, and, the majority of the time, getting onto an island means walking through the murky water from where we’ve anchored the boat. Although I rarely see creatures in the water for most of that walk, I am always thinking about what the possibilities are (and when I see small fish jump out of the water around me, seemingly in an attempt to escape from something, it doesn’t make me feel any better). I do regularly see small sharks of a foot or two in length hanging out right next to the shore, so I know they are there (and the one time I saw considerably bigger sharks, I really wished I hadn’t noticed…) and I assume they are feeding on fish and perhaps crustaceans in the area. What I don’t know (among other things) is whether the numbers and sizes of sharks I’m seeing are historically average- how bad have declines been along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico? And how do changes in Atlantic populations compare with things happening in the Pacific? And, although staying from shark-fin soup, do I still have a role in the forces decimating shark populations?
So, although it’s a little scary (and I will admit that I probably wouldn’t cover this topic in May or June, but now that I’m beached for a while, I think I can handle it), I’ll be focusing on shark research and conservation this month, hoping to shed a little light on the condition of these predators just beneath the surface.