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Global shark fishing mortality still rising despite widespread regulatory change
Editor’s summary
Over the past decade, the plight of the world’s sharks has received much attention, resulting in increased regulation and finning bans. However, whether this increased attention has translated into improved outcomes for sharks is unclear. Worm et al. estimated fishing-induced mortality globally and found that, overall, it has continued to increase over the past 10 years. Finning bans had little impact, but fishing regulations did reduce mortality. —Sacha Vignieri
Abstract
Over the past two decades, sharks have been increasingly recognized among the world’s most threatened wildlife and hence have received heightened scientific and regulatory scrutiny. Yet, the effect of protective regulations on shark fishing mortality has not been evaluated at a global scale. Here we estimate that total fishing mortality increased from at least 76 to 80 million sharks between 2012 and 2019, ~25 million of which were threatened species. Mortality increased by 4% in coastal waters but decreased by 7% in pelagic fisheries, especially across the Atlantic and Western Pacific. By linking fishing mortality data to the global regulatory landscape, we show that widespread legislation designed to prevent shark finning did not reduce mortality but that regional shark fishing or retention bans had some success. These analyses, combined with expert interviews, highlight evidence-based solutions to reverse the continued overexploitation of sharks.
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Volume 383 | Issue 6679
12 January 2024
12 January 2024
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Copyright © 2024 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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Received: 18 November 2022
Resubmitted: 13 May 2023
Accepted: 2 November 2023
Published in print: 12 January 2024
Acknowledgments
The authors express deep gratitude to all data providers and interviewees sharing their expertise and insight. Special thanks to C. Field and E. Lawler for statistical advice and support.
Funding: We acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, the Sustainable Fisheries and Communities Trust, and the Blue Marine Foundation. E.S.B. acknowledges funding from the Waitt Foundation; L.M.F. received funding from CAPES and Fulbright Brazil; and L.S. is grateful for support from the Liber Ero Fellowship Program.
Author contributions: This study was originally conceptualized by B.W., L.S., and N.G.D. and supervised by B.W. and D.B. Fisheries data were sourced and curated by M.L.D.P., D.B., S.O., E.S.B., L.S. and L.M.F. Interview data were collected and analyzed by N.G.D., L.S., and B.W. Model development was led by D.B. and E.S.B. Further data analyses, interpretation, and writing were shared among all authors.
Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Data and materials availability: All data are available in the supplementary materials (tables S1 to S19 and data S1 to S5) or available for download on Dryad (32). The complete code repository is available at Zenodo (33).
License information: Copyright © 2024 the authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original US government works. https://www.science.org/about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse
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