Perhaps no one ever captured the essence of the shortfin mako as well as Ernest Hemingway:
He
was a very big Mako shark, built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea
and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as
a swordfish’s and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome. He
was built as a swordfish except for his huge jaws which were tight shut now as
he swam fast, just under the surface with his high dorsal fin knifing through
the water without wavering. Inside the closed double lip of his jaws all of his
eight rows of teeth were slanted inwards. They were not the ordinary
pyramid-shaped teeth of most sharks. They were shaped like a man’s fingers when
they are crisped like claws. They were nearly as long as the fingers of the old
man and they had razor-sharp cutting edges on both sides. This was a fish built
to feed on all the fishes in the sea, that were so fast and strong and well
armed that they had no other enemy. Now he speeded up as he smelled the fresher
scent and his blue dorsal fin cut the water.
When
the old man saw him coming he knew that this was a shark that had no fear at
all and would do exactly what he wished.
Unfortunately, while makos had little to fear in the sea, the
people who came from the land posed a real threat. Some were anglers, who
looked at the mako’s size, strength, and speed and saw an adversary they sought
to vanquish and kill. Others were commercial fishermen who competed with the
big sharks for the tuna and billfish on which they both fed, and who were
always ready to harvest and sell any makos that they happened to catch on their
lines.
For many years, such threats didn’t appear to have much of an
impact on the mako population, but in 2017, scientists at the International
Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), an
organization that manages not only tunas, but sharks and billfish as well,
determined that the shortfin mako population in the North Atlantic Ocean had
become badly overfished, and was experiencing an unsustainable level of fishing
mortality.
The scientists advised that, in order to merely halt that
population’s decline, fishing mortality would have to be reduced by at least
80%. Even such a large reduction would not be enough to rebuild the mako
population, but it would probably prevent that population from getting too much
smaller.
Another stock assessment, released in
2019, found that “the number of pups produced in 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).” It further
stated that, “Given the vulnerable biological characteristics of this stock and
the pessimistic findings of the projections, to accelerate the rate of recovery
and to increase the probability of success the [stock assessment] Group
recommends that the Commission adopt a non-retention policy as it has already
done with other shark species.”
That recommendation didn’t go over well with three of the
nations most responsible for the shortfin mako’s decline, Spain, Portugal and
the United States.
Spain has historically been responsible for the largest share of
shortfin mako fishing mortality, catching many of the sharks on pelagic
longlines set for swordfish and tuna; Portugal’s longline fishery is second
only to Spain’s with respect to the number of makos killed. Both nations are
members of the European Union (EU), and exert significant influence on its
fishery policies.
The United States is the fourth-largest contributor to shortfin
mako mortality; it is unique among the major mako fishing nations in that the
greater part of its mako landings are attributable to its recreational
fishermen, and not to its pelagic longline fleet.
Recreational mako shark fishing has long been a big part of the
offshore angling scene in New England and the mid-Atlantic, supporting charter
boats, fishing tournaments, and those who sell fuel, bait and tackle to the
private boat fleet. Thus, many in the recreational fishing industry opposed the
proposed ban on mako harvest. An editorial that
appeared in the November 2019 edition of The Fisherman magazine
set out their position.
…I
know we can expect our U.S. advisors to fight hard for reasonable access; the
truth is, non-retention of makos by American anglers will have minimum impact
on the state of the world fishery. As is often the case, other ICCAT member
nations could do so much more in terms of accurately reporting their landings
and implementing new gear requirements (circle hooks and mono leaders) in their
longline fleets to promote better mako release success, as has already been
done in the United States by our fishermen.
The
environmental community seems to be blindly working in overdrive to completely
shut down our fishery; at the very least, one would hope these folks could bend
a bit in favor of existing, historical tournaments, all of which already
require permits and boats reporting requirements for 100% monitoring within the
shark fishery. One would argue that a limited harvest exemption for our
recreational mako contests would have a de minimus effect on the global fishery
while positively contributing to the scientific understanding of this species
at the same time.
The United States heeded such arguments, and jointed the EU in
staunch opposition to a no-retention proposal sponsored
by Senegal, which was later co-sponsored by Canada and the United Kingdom. From
2017 through 2020, the EU and U.S. delegations successfully fought against the
ICCAT scientists’ recommended landings ban, and maintained their fishermen’s
ability to harvest at least some of the makos that they caught.
In 2021, that changed. The United States had a new president,
who installed new leadership at the Department of Commerce, at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and at the National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), giving conservation advocates hope that the U.S. ICCAT
delegation might adopt a new position on the proposed mako harvest ban.
Additional hope was kindled after NMFS issued a “90-day finding” on a
petition seeking to list shortfin makos under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
While such finding didn’t guarantee that the shark would be listed, it did say
that “the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information
indicating that [listing] may be warranted. Therefore, we are initiating a
status review of the species to determine whether listing under the ESA is
warranted.”
It would seem logically inconsistent for the United States to
support continued shortfin mako harvest at the same time that it was
considering listing the species as either “threatened” or “endangered.” Yet in
July, at an intercessional meeting, called by ICCAT, to address the shortfin
mako issue, the United States again opposed a no-retention proposal introduced
by Canada and supported by ten other ICCAT members.
The U.S. position on mako conservation was not at all clear.
Thus, supporters of shark conservation were both elated and
relieved when, at the November 2021 ICCAT meeting, the United States delegation
agreed to support a compromise proposal that
would completely prohibit the retention of shortfin makos in 2022 and 2023 but,
at the insistence of the EU, might permit a small harvest beginning in 2024,
provided that overall fishing mortality, including dead discards, could be kept
below 250 metric tons (551,156 pounds).
The proposal adopted by ICCAT wasn’t perfect.
Sonja Fordham of Shark Advocates International, while pleased
that ICCAT has finally adopted meaningful mako conservation measures, observed that “the
two year time horizon is totally inadequate for rebuilding this depleted and
still declining population…We will keep fighting to extend the ban long-term to
give the makos the break they need to recover, while also pressing for
additional measures to maximize the survival of makos caught incidentally and
released.”
Ali Hood, director of conservation at the Shark Trust, deemed the ICCAT decision a
“critical breakthrough,” but noted that “it
won’t be successful if we take our eyes off the EU and their egregious intent
to resume fishing a decade before rebuilding is predicted to begin.”
That view was effectively echoed by Shannon Arnold, the Marine
Program Coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, who said, “We
celebrate this critical step today, mindful that the fight to bolster it begins
tomorrow. It is crystal clear from these negotiations that the EU remains
focused on reviving exploitation as soon as possible. To prevent shenanigans
and backsliding in 2004, we need even more countries at the table fighting back
with equal vigour to rebuild the population.”
In the United States, NMFS acknowledged that
there was more work ahead.
Despite
this important step forward, ICCAT’s work to end overfishing and rebuild North
Atlantic shortfin mako is far from done. “The United States looks forward to
advancing additional conservation measures through future ICCAT negotiations to
further reduce total fishing mortality and fully rebuild this stock,” said
[Alexa] Cole [U.S. Commissioner to ICCAT and Director of NOAA Fisheries Office
of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection]. “The use of modified fishing
gear, including circle hooks to reduce bycatch mortality, is an important
element we want to discuss further in ICCAT.”
Those are encouraging words from an agency that is still
considering whether the shortfin mako should be listed under the ESA. One of
the criteria for an ESA listing is
whether a species is threatened or endangered because of “the inadequacy of
existing regulatory mechanisms,” so it is even possible that ICCAT’s recent
action will tip the scales against listing, and the problems that listing would
cause for fishermen targeting other species, in favor of an ICCAT-approved
rebuilding plan.
Whether or not listing occurs, ICCAT’s recent action provides
hope that the shortfin mako stock might be restored over the next 50 years, and
that future generations might have the chance to see the “high dorsal fin” of
that beautiful shark “knifing through the water without wavering,” even as this
21st century winds down, and a new century waits to be born.
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This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog
of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at htt://conservefish.org/blog/
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