UNITED STATES, EUROPEAN UNION AGAIN FRUSTRATE MAKO CONSERVATION EFFORTS

 

One day last July, two friends, two Stony Brook University researchers, and I were drifting maybe 10 miles south of New York’s Fire Island, chumming for sharks in about 20 fathoms of water.  We were fogged in; not in a real pea soup fog that hides even the floats attached to the lines, but in stuff that was just thick enough to limit visibility to maybe 150 yards.

Four whole mackerel hung in the chum slick, the nearest right under the boat, the most distant maybe 50 yards away.  The drift was slow, and the morning had been quiet, but right around noon one of the reels clicked as a fish moved away with a bait.

A big blip on my radar had first claim on my attention; the drift was so slow and uncertain that the bow of the boat kept swinging back and forth in what was at least a 90 degree arc, making it impossible for me to figure out just where the other vessel was heading, so I wasn’t giving much regard to what my four anglers were doing.  They all had big-fish experience, and if it looked like there was going to be any problems, I figured that they’d let me know.

But as I monitored the progress of the other, fog-obscured vessel, I was vaguely aware of a sort of “I’ve got it” ”It might be gone…” ”No, it’s still there” kind of conversation going on behind me, until somebody yelled “It’s a little mako!” and I finally tore my eyes off the radar’s CRT screen long enough to spot the smallest shortfin mako shark that I’ve ever seen swimming alongside my boat.

It was 73 centimeters—about 28 inches—long, and why it thought that it could eat a whole mackerel, and how it managed to get the #18/0 circle hook into its mouth, I don't know.  But somehow it got itself hooked, and a very short while after I was finally sure that the ship on my radar was going to pass safely, more than a half-mile away, the researchers finished taking their measurements, collecting their samples, and implanting their tag, and allowed the little mako to dart back into the depths.

And in that moment, they accomplished more for shortfin mako conservation than the United States, the European Union, or the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, managed in all of this year.

There were hopes that things would be different.

Last year, scientists at ICCAT released an updated shortfin mako stock assessment, which revealed that

“spawning stock fecundity, defined as the number of pups produced each year, will continue to decline until approximately 2035 even with no fishing, because the cohorts that have been depleted in the past will age into the mature population over the next few decades (the median age at maturity is 21 years)…

“For [two runs of a population model that made slightly different assumptions], a [total allowable catch] of between 800-900 [metric tons], including dead discards, resulted in a >50% probability of…the joint probability of [a fishing mortality rate that is below the rate that results in maximum sustainable yield] and [spawning stock fecundity that is above the fecundity level necessary for the shortfin mako stock to produce maximum sustainable yield] by 2070.  [Another model run], which assumed a low productivity stock-recruitment relationship, showed that only [a total allowable catch] between 0 and 100 [metric tons] (including dead discards) resulted in a >50% probability of [achieving the desired result] by 2070.”

Since whatever remains of my body will be 116 years old in the year 2070, and well on its way to fertilizing the ecosysten from whence it came, I’m never going to see a healthy shortfin mako population again, but it would be nice to think that whoever is stalking my old grounds in that year might be able to do so.  However, it seems that the United States and European Union are doing their best to see that even that doesn’t happen.

Last year, they both objected to, and so effectively blocked, a proposal sponsored by Canada and Senegal to ban shortfin mako landings, and thus eliminate all commercial incentive to target and harvest  the species.  Because of the U.S. and E.U. objections, ICCAT agreed to extend its current shortfin mako management measures through 2020, when it would take up the issue again.

So on October 30, 2020, Canada and Senegal again submitted a proposal to ICCAT, which would have prohibited all landings of shortfin makos in the North Atlantic.  Even fish that were dead when brought to the boat would have to be discarded.  The only exception to that rule applied to vessels registered in nations which required that all such dead fish be landed; in the case of such vessels, the Senegalese/Canadian proposal allowed such landings, provided that the dead makos could not be sold for profit.

Such proposal took away any incentive for targeting makos, and drew support from the United Kingdom which, for the first time in many years, was present at ICCAT as an independent nation, rather than as a member of the E.U.  However, the United States and European Union were still adamant in their opposition to any measure that didn’t allow fishermen to land and sell at least some of the makos that they caught, so the ICCAT again failed to reach a binding agreement again this year.

Instead, the Commission kicked the can down the road, to be revisited once again toward the end of 2021.

Although disappointing, the ICCAT’s failure to reach an accord wasn’t surprising, as the United States had the same conservation-adverse administration running the country that it had in 2019, while a European Union without the U.K.’s often moderating voice would likely be even more opposed to a landings ban.

What was surprising was that, although the U.S. and E.U. were agreed on opposing the landings ban, they disagreed on other important issues.

Unlike the Senegalese/Canadian proposal, which would have reduced the total allowable catch of shortfin mako in the North Atlantic to zero, the United States’ proposal would have established a 700 metric ton annual catch limit in 2021, which would be further reduced to 500 metric tons in 2022 and subsequent years.  Although the U.S. proposal generally required all vessels to release all shortfin makos that came to the boat alive, it created three exceptions to that general rule.  Under the proposal, makos might be retained if

“a) the shark is dead at haulback, and the vessel has an observer or electronic monitoring system on board to verify the condition of the shark; or

b) [the nation where the boat is registered] requires a minimum size of at least 180 cm fork length for males and of at least 210 cm fork length for females; or

c) [the nation where the boat is registered] prohibits North Atlantic shortfin mako fisheries and requires all dead fish be landed and that the fishermen shall not draw any profit from said fish.”

While the U.S. proposal would reduce mako landings, its exceptions to the landings ban would perpetuate exceptions created by ICCAT in 2017; in doing so, it would both continue to provide commercial incentive for targeting, or at least not avoiding, shortfin makos, and would also continue to allow some level of harvest in the recreational mako shark fishery.  Thus, it would probably have little impact on the U.S. mako shark fishery.

At the same time, the U.S. proposal contained some worthwhile language, that might have reduced shortfin mako bycatch, and some level of dead discards, saying that

“[ICCAT member nations] shall require that vessels in their longline fisheries use nylon monofilament leaders and large circle hooks, which are fishing hooks with the point turned perpendicularly back to the shank to form a generally circular or oval shape, and the point of the hook is not offset by more than 10 degrees.”

It’s hard to say how many dead discards such rule would have prevented, had the U.S. proposal been adopted. 

U.S. longliners targeting swordfish and tuna already tend to use monofilament leaders, and that doesn’t prevent them from hooking and killing makos, which can easily be gut-hooked on the J-hooks that are often employed (I usually catch a few sharks each season that had been previously hooked on longlines, were cut loose, and still have the longline hook stuck in their jaw, often accompanied by an excessively long piece of monofilament leader). 

Requiring a circle hook would make it more likely that a shark would be hooked in the jaw, which is, in itself, a good thing, but would largely negate any benefit in using a monofilament leader, as it would make it much less likely that the shark would bite through and get away; I know charter boat captains who have abandoned wire leaders completely, have gone to straight mono, now that circle hooks are required in the Atlantic recreational shark fishery, and claim that even larger sharks aren’t biting through their leaders and escaping.

The fact that the U.S. proposal would have allowed circle hooks offset by 10 degrees also raises questions.  Offset circle hooks are currently outlawed in the recreational Atlantic shark fishery in the U.S. because they gut hook more fish than non-offset hooks do, so it’s difficult to understand why the U.S. would allow such hooks in the international longline fishery.

Taken as a whole, it would seem that any benefits of the proposed U.S. gear restrictions would be more illusory than real.

The European Union’s proposal would also reduce landings to 500 metric tons, and would limit those landings to fish that were dead when brought to the boat, thus differentiating itself from the U.S. proposal, which would also permit the harvest of fish that exceeded ICCAT’s current minimum size.  Like the U.S. proposal, the E.U. proposal would only allow vessels with observers or electronic monitoring systems on board to land shortfin makos.

Unlike the U.S. proposal, the E.U. proposal clearly favored the commercial fleet over the recreational sector.  Not only would it have prohibited recreational fishing vessels from landing any shortfin makos at all (which isn’t unreasonable, given that makos hooked by recreational vessels are always alive when brought alongside), but it would also have required 20% observer coverage on recreational vessels by the year 2023.  Such requirement would not only have imposed intolerable costs on the average recreational fisherman, as boats are generally required to pay the full costs of any observers that they carry, but would also have created a practically impossibile situaltion, for where would NMFS find enough qualified observers to cover 20% of all of the recreational boats, both private and charter, fishing for sharks off the U.S. East Coast on a pleasant weekend in late June?

The E.U. proposal would have hit the United States far harder than other ICCAT member nations, as the U.S. has a far larger recreational shark fishery than does the European Union.  But the E.U. has a long history of trying to shift its conservation burden onto other nation’s shoulders, as has been previously illustrated by the positions that it’s taken on Atlantic bigeye tuna in recent years.

The bottom line is that, although there are many nations, led by Senegal and Canada, which are attempting to bring meaningful conservation measures to bear on North Atlantic shortfin mako, neither the U.S. nor the members of the European Union are among them, and the mako is suffering as a result.

Hopefully, that will change in 2021, with an incoming Biden administration changing U.S. policy with respect to the species.  But hope is not a plan, and once the new administration has placed its nominees in charge of NMFS and NOAA, those concerned with the mako’s fate would do well to give those nominees a gentle—or, perhaps, not-so-gentle—nudge in the right direction.

Because there will always be those who fight for the status quo.