Marshall Islands - No Shark For You!

If you want to commercially harvest sharks one of the last places you want to be doing it these days is the Marshall Islands.

Trust us.

Some great enforcement news to close out the week with:

 "Last month, MIMRA levied and received a $125,000 fine against the Japanese transshipment vessel Satsuma, the first fine issued under the PL2011-63, Fisheries Amendment Act of 2011 that went into force late last year."

“It is illegal to have sharks on board,” said MIMRA Director Glen Joseph. MIMRA began enforcing the ban on sharks and shark fins late last year, initially confiscating gear but not issuing fines. Instead, enforcement officers put commercial fishermen — and others — on notice that they faced future fines if they continue to bring shark and shark products through the RMI. An unannounced raid at the Marshall Islands Fishing Venture late last year resulted in the boarding of many vessels and confiscation of sharks and shark fishing gear, said MIMRA enforcement officer Marcella Tarkwon."

Complete story here thanks to the Shark Defender blog for the find.

Sharks and DNA Zip Codes - Hope?

An international team of scientists, led by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, has used DNA to determine that groups of dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus) and copper sharks (Carcharhinus brachyurus) living in different coastal regions across the globe are separate populations of each species. Both are large apex predators that are heavily exploited for the shark fin trade, which claims tens of millions of animals every year to produce the Asian delicacy, shark fin soup.

Many of these species are declining as a result of this fishing pressure for their fins.

DNA research projects were conducted by a collaborative international team of scientists from the United States, Australia, South America, Asia, New Zealand and southern Africa. The scientists collectively analyzed part of the mitochondrial DNA in nearly 400 sharks sampled from all over the globe.

This research was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts through a grant to the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University. Sequence data were collected in the Field Museum's Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and Evolution, operated with support from the Pritzker Foundation. Additional sequence data were collected at the Guy Harvey Research Institute with operational funds and a grant from the Save Our Seas Foundation. Funding was also provided by the Turner Fellowship Program and the Tinker Foundation.

For more information on "Global phylogeography of the dusky shark, Carcharhinus obscurus: implications for fisheries management and monitoring the shark fin trade," visit here.

For more information on "Phylogeography of the copper shark (Carcharhinus brachyurus) in the southern hemisphere: implications for the conservation of a coastal apex predator," visit here.

Shark Conservation - Message to Shark NGO's

For the most part the following shark conservation news went under reported by the conservation world this week.

For us this was interesting if not revolutionary news:

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- A Brazilian environmental group sued a fish exporter for $790 million Monday, alleging the firm has illegally sold the fins from 280,000 sharks since 2009 to meet demand in Asia where they are a culinary delicacy.

In Brazil, it is illegal to separate shark fins from the carcasses, and in May government agents reported finding 3.3 tons of shark fins during a single raid on the company sued by the Environmental Justice Institute.

Lawsuits vs Awareness Campaigns

A quick look around the Internet finds 95% of the shark conservation efforts focus on awareness.

That's not so surprising, as most have little to no funds to work with. We have been highlighting that problem for a while. There are however quite a few NGO's who have money, and their "awareness campaigns" ring hollow against an ongoing global shark crises.

The Environmental Justice Institute in Brazil has just fired the first shot and lead the way in what could well be a new paradigm for shark conservation. As the Environmental Justice Institute knows along with any group who's been in the shark conservation world for a while, the shark fin traffickers are not hiding. Their warehouses are not underground, their fishing fleets do not operate under cover of darkness, and for the most part they do not worry about the trade in fins.

This has to stop, and one way to make it stop is to hold the traffickers accountable for laws already on the books via lawsuits. So, the next time you see a top tier NGO asking for money for what amounts to an awareness campaign, think again.

Demand action in the form of lawsuits that target individual companies. As we have long said, the shark conservation world does not understand trade. Trade is business. Businesses can be seriously impacted when you look at the problem from the business and trade side of things.

Shark Mafia?

For too long, and thanks to some well placed and highly public media bubbles, the shark conservation world and the general public has come to believe that all shark fins, the entire trade is run by a global shark mafia. In conversations I had recently with an NGO talking about disrupting the trade I was hit with this question, "aren't you afraid they might come and do something to you?"

My response was "who are they exactly?" In my world "they" are folks like the following small company in Vietnam:

Ms Dieu Hanh
HX Export Center
405/2 Xo Viet Nghe Tinh str., Binh Thanh dist.,
Ho Chi Minhc city, Viet Nam
Tel: 848 5117992 - Fax: 848 5117829
Email: E-mail:hanhle_hxexpco@vnn.vn

You want to take down the shark fin trade, take down the trade by looking at trade from the business side.

The Environmental Justice Institute knows that shark fin companies can ill afford lawsuits and that successful prosecution of just one company will send a clear and unambiguous message to the rest.

Beats another repetitious awareness campaign any day of the week. By now even folks who get their news via rudimentary roof top carrier pigeons know there's a shark crises going on.

Kudos to The Environmental Justice Institute for the effort and the direct action lawsuit.

Note: There is one fine example of an awareness campaign that should continue to be funded and deserves note. WildAid's China campaign is about targeted awareness and over the past seven years has made serious and lasting inroads to curb shark fin use in China and Asia.

Pete Thomas Outdoors - Brazil Shark Fin Bust

If you have not yet become a fan of the Pete Thomas Outdoors blog you should do so soon.

Investigative journalism is what this blog is all about. And it's no surprise because Pete is a reporter with a free reign to cover just about anything. Fortunately one of the things he cares about are our oceans, and more specifically sharks.

Pete covered a recent shark fin bust from Brazil that no one is talking about yet. One ton of fins destined for Japan with a $29,000 fine.

"The owner of the export company in Brazil was fined $29,700 and crews of the fishing boats also are expected to be penalized for illegally slaughtering sharks."

Good to have Pete on our side.

Complete story.