Last week, The
New York Times published an article on surf
fishing for sharks here on Long Island.
It’s something that has been going on for a very long time,
but for many years, it has passed under the radar, as a handful of traditional
surf fishermen, secretive folks by nature, spent the dark hours of
summer pursuing big, toothy fish from the beach.
In some areas, such as Florida and Texas, shark fishing from the surf has been a big deal for a long time, with anglers developing ways to fish heavy gear, and catch truly big fish, from the beach.
The
world-record tiger shark, a fish of 1,780 pounds, was caught off a pier in
South Carolina back in 1964, and while that wasn’t exactly the same as
catching it from the surf, the angler still had to stand up to a fish weighing
nearly a ton, without being able to maneuver or back down the way boat
fishermen do.
While that tiger shark was far larger than the typical shark
caught from the beach—it was a world record, after all—southern
shark fishermen regularly catch fish of more than 500 pounds while standing on
the sand.
Further north, the fish are typically smaller; here on Long
Island, most are either sandbar sharks weighing less than 100 pounds, or sand
tigers, which might weigh more than twice that much, but are typically smaller.
And that’s a big part of the problem.
If we discount dogfish, surfcasters fishing north of
Chesapeake Bay are most likely to catch one of three shark species—sandbars,
sand tigers, or duskies. None of those
species are doing well. The
National Marine Fisheries Service lists both sand tigers and dusky sharks as “prohibited
species” that must be immediately released by recreational or commercial
fishermen. Recreational fishermen are
also prohibited from keeping sandbar sharks, although there
is a very small, very restricted, and very heavily monitored commercial fishery
for that species.
Thus, there is a real question as to whether it is
appropriate for recreational fishermen to target those species.
I’ll note right here and now that I am a shark fisherman,
and have been for more than 40 years.
But I fish from a boat, and each
year, in order to obtain a shark endorsement for my Highly Migratory Species
permit, I have to watch a brief video and take a brief quiz intended to refresh
my memory of how to identify and safely release prohibited species of shark in
a way that will best assure each shark’s survival.
As a boat fisherman, I never take a hooked shark out of the
water, do my best to minimize fighting and handling times and, when the time
for release arrives, use a bolt cutter to cut through the hook, so that it
doesn’t remain in the fish once it’s again swimming free.
But because surfcasters operate solely within state waters,
no such permit is required. And once a shark
is caught, the needs and future health of the fish too often take a back seat
to the sort of photos and videos that attract a lot of attention on social
media.
As The New York Times reports,
“…The prize [for catching a shark from the beach] is usually
a very impressive selfie before the shark is released—or something darker. One picture shared in a private Facebook
group this summer showed a sand tiger shark discarded on a Long Island beach
with its head cut off.
“’The shark angling community has a greater percentage of
people that have this macho-man ‘I’m going to conquer giant beasts’ attitude,’
said David Shiffman, a marine conservation biologist and shark expert at
Arizona State University.
“One particular set of photos from July caused a stir: In them, a college student from suburban
Manhasset, N.Y. posed for a series of pictures, flexing and reclining alongside
a large shark that he had caught and later released. In one, he pulled its nose up to show its
teeth…”
It’s probably important to note that sharks’ jaws are hinged
to open downward, and that the fish don’t have a neck that normally arches well
backward when the shark bites something, so bending the shark’s head back that
way places unnatural stress on the spine.
In fact, I remember fishing for cod on New England party boats when I
was young, and seeing the boats’ mates bend the heads of spiny dogfish back in
just that way, until the spine snapped and the fish was returned to the water
to swim, upside down, in weak circles until it died.
Bending the head back, even if less violently, will never
do the shark too much good.
Not all surf-based shark fishermen approve of mishandling
fish that way, something that the Times makes very clear. But most of them will remove the fish from
the water for photos and to remove the hook, leaving the weight of the fish’s
entire body unsupported, and forcing it to put unnatural pressure on the animal’s
organs and connective tissues. Given
that sharks don’t have any bones—the skeleton is composed entirely of softer
and more flexible cartilage, that doesn’t do the fish any good, either.
As the Times notes,
“the nature of land-based shark fishing, as opposed to
fishing from a boat, brings a high probability that the shark will be harmed at
some point between its initial hooking and ultimate release…
“Just because a shark swims away doesn’t mean that it will
survive for very long afterward, according to shark experts. Stress and exhaustion from the fight on the
line—and abrasions from being dragged up the sand—can leave lasting damage.
“In almost no case, Dr. Shiffman said, should there be time
to pose for photographs. ‘Doing it
right, leaving the shark in the water so that its gills are partially
submerged, you don’t get as cool a picture,’ he said. ‘But you’re less likely to kill the shark.’”
Yet to those who see themselves as social media celebrities,
getting the “cool…picture” is the whole point.
In this “photos or it didn’t happen” age, the simple satisfaction that
the traditional surfcaster felt when he landed a fish is no longer enough. Internet likes and, for many, the Internet
followers that can lead to a profitable YouTube channel, are what matters most.
Thus they abandon the realm of the responsible
sportsman, who always gives the highest priority to the health of the resource that he or she pursues, and
worship on the altar of Internet fame—or notoriety, depending on one’s point of
view.
What makes that worse, and a further death knell to any
notion of sportsmanship, is that in many places, targeting prohibited species
is illegal.
“It is illegal to take or possess prohibited shark
species. The definition of ‘take’
includes pursuing, hunting, killing, and capturing prohibited shark
species. Anglers must release any
prohibited shark immediately, in a manner that maximizes its chances for survival. Do not fish for or target prohibited sharks.
“Commonly encountered prohibited shark species found in New
York state waters include the Sandbar (‘Brown’), Dusky, and Sand Tiger
sharks. These three species are
primarily the only species of large (non-dogfish) shark anglers will encounter
from shore.”
So surf fishermen who target sharks pretty well know that they’re
illegally targeting prohibited species, but do it anyway, showing no respect
for the fish and no responsibility as anglers as they continue to drag such
sharks, which already have enough problems, over the sand.
They try to justify such behavior, with the Times
reporting that
“Shark anglers would say they don’t ‘target’ particular
species and that they cannot always control what gets hooked on their lines.”
But when prohibited species make up more than 90 percent—probably
more than 95 or 98 percent—of your catch, it’s hard to credibly argue that you’re
really fishing for the legal blacktips, tigers, threshers, or hammerheads that
might very, very rarely take a bait, and only caught one of the prohibited
sharks by accident.
The argument doesn’t gain any credibility when some anglers,
including some video celebrities, are recommending that shark fishermen tell
all and sundry that they’re targeting bluefish, not sharks, in order to get around
the law.
And it’s not only sharks that engender such
misbehavior. A
popular angling discussion board, which generally focuses on striped bass and
surfcasting topics, in currently embroiled in a hot debate about whether a photo
that shows a Florida tarpon lying in an inch or two of water, being lapped by
the waves, violates a Florida regulation that prohibits removing large tarpon
from the water.
Once again, the angler involved is an Internet celebrity, apparently an “influencer” that pushes particular brands of fishing gear, and the photo was originally posted by the rep of a fishing rod company, who was trying to engender interest in the company’s products.
A Florida fisheries manager
weighed in, saying that in his opinion, the tarpon photo probably violated the
state regulations and endangered the health of the tarpon, but that didn’t do
much to stem the discussion of whether the fish was really harmed, whether the
law was broken, and whether the promotional shot was ethical.
The rod company rep claimed that
he would also seek an opinion from the State of Florida, but has not provided
any such opinion as yet, claiming that the state never responded.
That could even be true, but the
fact remains that, once again, the desire to get a good Instagram photo trumped
any sense of responsibility for the health of the fish or complying with the
intent—and probably the letter—of Florida law.
But another Florida angler found
out the hard way that the law means what it says. After a
Florida college student posted a photo of himself holding a goliath grouper—another
species that may not be removed from Florida waters—on the Internet, he was
visited by fish and wildlife enforcement officers, charged with a misdemeanor,
and briefly held in the local jail before being released on a $7,500 bond.
That’s a big price to pay for irresponsibility and a
moment of Internet fame.
But anglers’ lack of respect for
the fish that they catch, and their failure to take responsibility for those
fishes’ survival, doesn’t only extend to prohibited or heavily protected
species such as some sharks, tarpon, and goliath grouper.
Ever since the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission adopted Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, with its 28 to 35-inch slot limit, the
Internet has been flooded with photos of big striped bass—fish well over 35
inches—being held out of the water while photos were shot.
Some of those photos show fish with
their bellies bulging with unsupported internal organs. Some show fish with anglers’ hands shoved
under the gill plates, putting the gills themselves at risk. Some show fish that seem to be losing quite a
bit of blood.
But all of those photos show fish
with a decidedly reduced chance of survival, because anglers thought that
posting bass photos on the Internet was more important than getting the fish
back in the water quickly—or never taking it out in the first place—even though
the photos meant that the fish was more likely to die.
It’s a sad story that is
constantly repeated in this Internet age, and just demonstrates why anglers
need to begin showing more respect for their quarry, and accepting the
responsibility that goes with catching a fish:
If you’re not going to kill it and eat it, you have an obligatio to do
all you can to make sure that it doesn't die after release.
In these days when so many fish
stocks are not in good shape, risking a fish’s survival just to take a few
photos and get your 15 minutes of Internet fame is not a responsible option.
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