Government Shark Cull in Cancun? 70 Animals on the Block

In response to February's unfortunate shark attack in Cancun involving a Canadian tourist, the Cancun Port Authority has reportedly authorized a wide scale shark cull. It was reported that 70 sharks have been taken so far.

The story can be found in Spanish on the Expediente Quinta Roo website along with a video purporting to be a pile of the first sharks to be taken by local fishermen:

Lessons we've learned from tagging sharks

OCEAN CITY -- In 1978, before I went into the charter fishing business full-time, I got involved with tagging sharks by signing up with NOAA's Coop-erative Shark Tagging Program. I still recall the satisfaction of planting the first tag and knowing that the act could provide biologists with data that could somehow help sharks.

Tagging added a new dimension to fishing that I had never known before. Every catch had more significance than just another struggle on the line, because when they swam away with our tag, they would, in a way, still be our fish. If someone caught them 10 days or 10 years later and chose to report the tag, we'd get credit for catching it first and we'd hear from NOAA the details about who recaptured it, where it was taken and how big it had grown.

I don't know what happened to that first shark, but we sure have heard about others. Since we started tagging we've had recaptures off the coast of every state along the East and Gulf Coast, Mexico, Cuba, the North Atlantic, Spain, and the Azores. As our involvement with shark fishing and tagging increased, so did our relationships with various biologists and fishery managers doing shark research, who have occasionally solicited help with various projects or studies.

Over the years we've had requests for catch data, tissue samples, stomach samples, teeth, entire sharks, assistance with hook studies, and the making of documentary and educational films.

Mark Samson is a sport fishing captain and fishing for sharks off the east coast. He is also the developer of the "Shark Block Rig" which has proven to be 90% effective in prohibiting gut hooked sharks.

Complete story.

Australia's Shark Fishery - Grasping at Straws

From the RTSea blog this morning a look at the shark wolves in Australia and efforts to leverage recent shark attack media for broader shark harvest quotas:

Always on the hunt to increase their annual shark catch to satisfy the growing Asian demand, Australian fishery industry officials are continuing in their strategy to link three recent shark-human interactions with the need to expand on shark catch limits.

In an online article in The Australian, it was reported that in North South Wales, Australia's southeast territory and home to the three recent attacks, an increase in prey fish and Sydney Harbor's improved water quality may be a contributing factor to the number of attacks.

"NSW has worked very hard for the last couple of decades to try and ensure the sustainability of its fisheries. There is less fishing and the fishing is more controlled -- there is more abundant prey in Sydney Harbour and maybe more sharks because of this," said Rik Buckworth of the Northern Territories Fisheries Department. He also said other factors could be climatic changes and more swimmers at Sydney beaches."The number of shark attacks doesn't mean there are more sharks around, per se, but they're localized on the feeding schools," said Taronga Zoo shark expert John West.

So, you improve the marine ecosystem by improving water quality and control fishing, which increases fish populations (ie: getting back to normal) . . . and that's a bad thing?

Well, according to fishery industry spokesman Duncan Gay, it is as he is blaming conservation-friendly policies for increases in predatory sharks in NSW waters - once again, the fear factor. He said high shark numbers could be linked to "bad government policy in closing up large amounts of the fishery and changing fishing habits."

In another related article, Dr. Gilly Llewellyn of the World Wildlife Fund says, "The calls for an increase to the shark fishing quota in NSW are driven by this opportunism. Some fishers are using the current media feeding frenzy around sharks to call for an increase in shark hunting levels and are making claims that have no scientific basis. They should be ignored." And other Australian fisheries department officials say there is no evidence that fishing restrictions have led to more shark attacks.

Could improved marine environments lead to a higher number of sharks? It's possible. Could the three recent shark-human interactions be simply a statistical anomaly? It's possible. Could the fishing industry be on a witch hunt, drumming up excuses so as to increase profits? Most definitely.