New Reality Is That Man Bites Shark

[n2doc]

Fish Story's New Reality Is That Man Bites Shark
It's 4 of Us a Year, Millions of Them
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 27, 2007; A01

LAS BARRANCAS, Mexico -- Year after year, beach season brings accounts of harrowing shark attacks as people around the world plunge into the surf to escape summer's heat.

But the reality is that these fearsome predators kill an average of four people worldwide every year, while humans kill anywhere from 26 million to 73 million sharks annually, according to recent calculations by an international team of scientists.

With the latter toll mounting rapidly in recent years, there has been a growing realization that something must be done to prevent sharks from disappearing from the planet.

Two weeks ago, Mexico, which has a large shark fishery, enacted a new law that protects three species, bans the practice of shark "finning" -- slicing off the fins of a newly caught shark and tossing the animal back in the ocean to die -- and requires authorities to monitor the activities of large shark-fishing boats. Early next month, officials from around the globe will meet in The Hague, Netherlands, to decide whether to put tight new controls on the trade in two heavily fished species, spiny dogfish and porbeagle, under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"For most of human history, sharks have been seen as a threat to us," David Balton, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for oceans and fisheries, said in a recent interview. "Only recently are we beginning to see we're a threat to them."

Unprovoked shark attacks off U.S. shores have risen over the past century, as Americans have flocked to the coasts and researchers have collected more careful statistics. Yet the number of deaths worldwide has dipped slightly in recent years, according to the International Shark Attack File, compiled by the American Elasmobranch Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History. Occasionally, the number of deadly attacks spikes, as it did in 2000 when sharks killed 11 people.

The declines in shark populations have been steep, as documented recently by scientists using technologies including satellite tracking and DNA analysis. In March, a team of Canadian and U.S. scientists calculated that between 1970 and 2005, the number of scalloped hammerhead and tiger sharks may have declined by more than 97 percent along the East Coast, and that the population of bull, dusky and smooth hammerhead sharks dropped by more than 99 percent. Globally, 16 percent of 328 surveyed shark species are described by the World Conservation Union as threatened with extinction.

more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/26/AR2007052601261.html

[Double T]

1. Conservation and preservation of 'endangered spiecies',..........

which include MOST other species with the exception of 'man', are being ignored as the world human population continues to grow and the demand for products from 'endangered species' continues to increase.