Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Friday, August 12, 2011
Groups Seek Protection for Imperiled Hammerhead Sharks

Scalloped Hammerheads Threatened by Fish Commerce and “Finning”
Contact: Taylor Jones (303) 353-1490

Additional Contact: Lee Hall, Friends of Animals, 610-964-0090or leehall@friendsofanimals.org

Washington,DC – In the wake of “SharkWeek,” and following their action taken last week to protect porbeagle sharks,WildEarth Guardians and Friends of Animals are seeking protection for another“wolf of the sea”— scalloped hammerhead sharks. The groups today submitted apetition to the National Marine Fisheries Service seeking to list theseimperiled predators as “threatened” or “endangered” under the Endangered SpeciesAct (ESA).

The hammerhead’sname describes its characteristic elongated, flattened head, which on thescalloped hammerhead has distinctive, curved indentations along the front edge.Scalloped hammerhead sharks can live to age 30. Adults usually travel alone orin pairs, but juveniles gather in large schools. Most sharks, includingscalloped hammerheads, play an important role as apex predators in maintainingocean bio-communities. Ecosystem stability and biodiversity, congressionalpriorities for the ESA, could seriously suffer from the loss of these toppredators.

“To paraphrase Jaws, scalloped hammerheads are going toneed a bigger boat to survive,” said Taylor Jones, Endangered Species Advocatefor WildEarth Guardians.

“This petitionis the first step in getting these sharks aboard the legal ark of theEndangered Species Act.”

TheInternational Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the scallopedhammerhead species as “endangered” on its Red List. These sharks live incoastal waters in portions of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Allscalloped hammerhead populations are threatened by fish commerce—the main causeof population declines.

Scallopedhammerhead sharks have very high commercial value. While scalloped hammerheadsare especially coveted for their fins, which are used in dishes such asshark-fin soup, the shark’s flesh is also sold in various forms as food, thehides are commercially valued, and the remainder is used for vitamins andfishmeal for agribusiness use. Thecommercial value of the species, combined with the sharks’ slow rate ofreproduction, makes them highly vulnerable to exploitation.

Lee Hall, Vice Presidentof Legal Affairs for Friends of Animals, said, “Shark exploitation must beconfronted if scalloped hammerheads and other sharks are to survive andthrive.”

The practice of“finning” is of particular concern for scalloped hammerheads and other sharks.In this practice, crews land the sharks and remove only their fins, disposingof the remainder of the animals overboard and leaving disabled sharks to drownor die of starvation. By taking the fins only, crews catch and kill many moresharks than their boats could otherwise hold—and many more than can beofficially recorded as losses to the bio-community.

Hong Kong is a primaryhub for the shark fin trade, and as China’s economy strengthens, demand for theexpensive shark-fin soup rises.

Few regulationscurrently protect hammerhead sharks. Listing species under the EndangeredSpecies Act has proven an effective safety mechanism: more than 99 percent ofplants and animals listed under the Act persist today. The law is especiallyimportant as a bulwark against the current extinction crisis; plants andanimals are disappearing at a rate much higher than the natural rate ofextinction due to human activities. Scientists estimate that 227 species wouldhave gone extinct if not for ESA listing. Listing species with globaldistribution can both protect the species domestically, and help focus U.S.resources toward enforcement of international regulation and recovery of thespecies.