Keith Alexander Lee
I vividly keep in mind visiting the Florida Keys as a child within the Nineteen Seventies. Coming from Ontario, Canada, we had been escaping the chilly and experiencing issues that we didn’t have on the Nice Lakes. This was a time when native conch was nonetheless on the menu, as was all-you-can-eat shrimp contemporary from the Gulf.
As soon as, I requested my dad and mom to cease at a marina in Islamorada after the constitution boats docked, to not see grouper or snapper, however to rise up shut with sharks. Up till that time, I had solely seen sharks on The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau or Nationwide Geographic. What was totally different on that day in Islamorada was that each one the sharks had been lifeless, hung up by their tails. The heads of the massive tigers and nice hammerheads rested on the bottom, tooth uncovered. It’s a second nonetheless etched into my reminiscence.
Quick-forward a number of a long time to my days as an undergrad, after I began to be taught in regards to the connections between fish species and the habitats they rely upon. A basic textbook instance was an ocean meals internet with a picture of a shark on prime. The accompanying narrative defined the function of apex predators serving to construction and sustaining a wholesome ecosystem. This was additionally a time when pressures placed on ocean ecosystems had been accelerating. Our ocean atmosphere was feeling “the load of humanity,” mentioned Sandy Moret, famed tarpon angler within the Florida Keys.
By the late Nineties, business pursuits overharvested sharks to the purpose that many species had been thought of susceptible, threatened, and even critically endangered. The mainstream media coated the apply of shark finning. We had been going through a actuality that with out sharks, our ocean ecosystems would change into terribly out of steadiness.
Nationwide and worldwide shark conservation kicked into gear. After 30 years of efforts, there was progress, however many species are simply beginning to get better. Globally, most shark populations are nonetheless in decline.
Now for the depraved downside. With populations rebuilding for some shark species, anglers are more and more reporting dropping hooked fish to sharks. These encounters are referred to as depredation. There are additionally extra anglers fishing in our coastal waters than ever earlier than, contributing to elevated encounters with sharks. Fishing is common, and anglers have each proper to go fishing. Actually, anglers are essential eyes on the water within the struggle for conservation. But, when a shark takes a prize fish off your line, it may well actually piss you off. For fish we launch, predation may occur after they swim away.
Is it a shark downside? My lab at UMass has been finding out depredation and post-release mortality in leisure fisheries for a few years. Tensions between anglers and sharks solely proceed to develop. There are different predators too, resembling sea lions in Pacific waters. Just like my vivid reminiscence as a child within the Keys, I keep in mind prefer it was yesterday after I watched a large nice hammerhead shark chase down a tarpon beneath the Bahia Honda Bridge. This all occurred whereas we tried to land a tarpon to implant acoustic tags to review their actions and migrations. After chatting with fishing guides and anglers within the space, we launched into a examine to have a look at what was rising the probabilities of a hooked tarpon being whacked by an ideal hammerhead.
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We discovered that all of it got here all the way down to struggle time and tide. The longer an angler fought a tarpon on the road, the higher the probabilities of depredation. There was additionally overlap within the habitats utilized by tarpon and nice hammerheads on the outgoing tide, to not point out elevated overlap the place anglers had been hooking and preventing the fish.
Who doesn’t just like the struggle of a fish on rod and reel? However for these pods of tarpon aggregating beneath the bridge previous to spawning, a prolonged struggle generally was a loss of life sentence. And dropping these spawners negatively impacts the following technology of tarpon. There’s a fast resolution to the primary a part of this downside: Struggle tarpon more durable, and get ’em landed and launched in beneath 10 minutes. After all, a shark might nonetheless go after it as soon as launched, however not less than the fish has a preventing probability of survival.
Over the past 5 years, accounts of depredation from sharks have elevated dramatically on the web and social media. My lab not too long ago carried out a survey of anglers that fish between North Carolina and Maine. Preliminary outcomes present that it’s not simply sharks, but additionally seals and seabirds swiping anglers’ catches. There may be plenty of anger and dismay from depredation, plus security considerations when reaching all the way down to the water to land a fish.
Just lately, the Home of Representatives handed the SHARKED Act as a way to allocate federal funds to seek out options to this downside. We’d like fishing as a preferred leisure exercise that fuels passions and helps the economic system. We additionally want sharks and different predators that contribute to the well being of coastal ecosystems. There may be a lot extra to be carried out to see if this depraved downside could be solved.
