Perhaps you could enlighten us shark murdering crackers just exactly which shark species specifically is in danger,quote the source of the study so we can test it's veracity and then I will forgo the palate pleasure of fresh shark(also the mercury).Dude,perhaps you should read the parts posted here about ethics.Most of the guys here are quite informed about fisheries issues.That we would study the issue before eating them suggests we might be good stewards of the resources we pay to manage...QUOTE]
First of all, I'm not calling anyone shark-murdering crackers...if you want to take my posts way out of context, use language I never used and take it personally, then feel free. I can only assume you do so because you're a) guilty of overfishing species yourself, or b) you have been wrongfully accused of bloodlust by uninformed animal rights activists. If we're going to have a healthy debate about this, then you'll need to kindly remove that chip from your shoulder. I'm not uninformed, I'm not an animal rights activist, and I'm not your enemy. I'm someone who enjoys the ocean just like you.
I could go into detail about how I divemastered shark-cage charters and an extensive shark tagging program for three years up here in new england...I could go into detail about how my father and my uncle and my grandfather and his grandfather were all charter fishermen for years and years...I could even go into detail about how my wife's father worked in Research and Statistics for the NMF. But the truth is, none of that matters to you and those of your opinion, because you will use whatever statistics support your fishing practices and debunk any that contest it as without scientific merit.
The bottom line is this - I and generations of my family have watched sharks literally disppear from the entire eastern seaboard. I don't need to post any stats in this thread, because I have watched firshand as different species are just obliterated. I don't need to prove anything to you. My own eyes have seen it, and so have hundreds of divers and thousands of sportfishermen.
Do I think most shark species are endagered? No. Do I think they're threatened? Without question, and there's no research that you could print that could prove me wrong. It just doesn't exist. Moreover, you're looking for me to find research that says sharks are at the point of extinction or being put on the endangered species list, and of course I can't do that. That doesn't exist, either. Post me the yearly reports of commercial shark catches in states from Florida to Maine. Post me what the largest shark is that's winning annual tournaments. Gather me the information that says I'm wrong about sharks being overfished and I'll never post on scubaboard again.
The truth is, I don't even think that the fault lies with the average sportfisherman. Our waters are being raped not by the guy who heads out on his Silverton but by hordes of foreign vessels and by American commercial boats that don't follow guidelines set by the government.
I don't think that an absolute moratorium should be put on shark fishing, be it commercial or recreational. Hunting and harvest is essential to the healthy management of any species on this planet. But I do think we as Americans and also as human beings have a direct obligation to be hypersensitive to the populations of fish in our coastal and offshore waters that are particularly vulnerable to overfishing, particularly when they're already being hit hard. If we do nothing while foreign and rogue domestic vessels do more than they should be, we're just as guilty.
I just think that we need to be more careful. We already know that these animals take decades to mature, and the earlier post of not keeping large sharks is one of the best ideas out there. Sharks aren't endangered yet, but there is clearly enough pressure being put on them from a variety of sources that their numbers could get to a point where they simply cannot fully recover from it. This would just be a tragedy for everyone - you, who wants to hunt and eat them, and me who simply wants to dive with them and photograph them.
We need to be more careful than we already are. If that makes me a tree-hugging eco-liberal, then I can live with that.
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