Sharks swimming into extinction?

By Gerry T. Estrera
The sharks are some of the most feared creatures.  “We fear them, but at the same time, we are fascinated by them,” says television host Doc Ferds Recio of “Born to be Wild.”  
Touted as “highly feared apex predator of the sea,” sharks have on planet earth for some 400 million years.  They possess replaceable razor sharp teeth that grow in tens of thousands over a lifetime.
Sharks help maintain the delicate balance of these marine ecosystems. “They are top predators,” says Dr. Arnel “AA” Yaptinchay, founder and director of Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines.  “Sharks maintain healthy ecosystems by keeping some fish populations in check.  They remove weak individuals, thus keeping fish stocks robust.”
But while sharks may have a deadly reputation, they are facing extinction. “If you go to any reef around the world, except for those that are really protected, the sharks are gone,” deplored Dr. Ransom Myers. “Their value is so great that completely harmless sharks, like whale sharks, are killed, for their fins.”
Dr. Myers was a former American government scientist who sought to warn that overfishing would lead to collapse of Atlantic cod populations and later discovered that 90 percent of the world’s bluefin tuna and other large predatory fish had disappeared.
“Humans have always been very good at killing big animals,” commented Dr. Myers, who died in 2007 at the age of 54. “Ten thousand years ago, with just some pointed sticks, humans managed to wipe out the woolly mammoth, saber tooth tigers, mastodons, and giant vampire bats. The same could happen in the oceans.”
Around the world, people kill nearly 100 million sharks and billions of other sea animals each year, studies show.
Although concerns for sharks are high, shark populations continue to decline due to lack of fisheries management and rampant illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, according to a report released by the Worldwide Fund for Nature and Traffic (WWF) last year.
“Sharks are some of the least understood predators on the planet,” deplores Barbara Block, an American marine biologist. This is true in the case of the Philippines, which does not have a plan to manage shark fisheries, according to the WWF report.
Although the report has classified the whale shark and manta rays as protected species that are banned for export, there is no protection for their habitats. “Whale shark aggregation sites have been identified as priority conservation areas. There is no study on population estimates of any species of sharks in the Philippines,” the report said.
Based on estimates from various environmental groups, shark and shark fin trade in the Philippines is a well-established industry.  In 2006, the Iloilo-based Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center said the ten most commonly taken shark species in the Philippines (in order) are: Whitetip Reef Shark, Spurdog Squalus megalops; rays Rhinobatus spp., Brownbanded Bamboo Shark, Giant Guitarfish; Blacktip Shark; Sharptooth Lemon Shark Negaprion acutidens; Pelagic Thresher, Tiger Shark and Silvertip Shark.
The data submitted to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that between 2000 and 2008 the Philippines reported exports of dried and salted shark fins (averaging 36 tons per year) and Shark liver oil (19 tons per year).
“In volume terms, the Philippines is a net importer of shark products with imports of Sharks averaging around 230 tons per year over 2000-2008 and considerably higher, at around 500 tons per year, between 2005 and 2008,” the report said.
Sharks are worth more for tourism than in soup.  “’You can use alive sharks over and over again throughout their lifetime.  But once they are dead, you can use them only once and nothing more,” reminded Dr. Yaptinchay.
To save sharks from disappearing in the Philippine waters, Senator Loren Legarda filed a bill banning the catching, sale and purchase of sharks and rays in the country.  She urged her colleagues in the Congress to enact Senate Bill 2616.
“Clearly, the absence of the law forbidding the catching of sharks, gives people the courage to continue the practice, which could eventually lead to the extinction of shark species in the country, especially that they reproduce slowly,” the lady senator said in a statement.
According to Legarda, sharks are important for ecological balance, especially in a coastal country like the Philippines. “Being a country with about two-thirds of the known marine species of the Pacific living in its coastal waters, the Philippines plays a crucial role in protecting marine species,” she said.
SB 2616 prescribes imprisonment of up to six years for persons caught catching, selling or buying sharks and rays. The measure also requires the offender to restore or compensate for the restoration to the damage he or she has done.