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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/shark-finning/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2026 01:51:15 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on shark finning</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/shark-finning/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Asia&#8217;s shark and ray hotspots remain poorly protected, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2026 03:52:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/25201215/1-A-famiky-of-Critically-Endangered-Winghead-Hammerhead-sharks-and-a-threatened-Eagle-ray-died-due-to-fisheries-in-Baththalangunduwa-ISRA-c-BRT-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321855</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Global, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bycatch, Conservation Solutions, Environmental Policy, Extinction, Fish, Fisheries, Gillnets, Illegal Fishing, Marine Animals, Marine Protected Areas, Overfishing, Protected Areas, Rays, shark finning, Sharks, and Species]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — The majority of 122 marine areas identified across Asia as critical for the survival of sharks, rays and chimaeras remain largely unprotected despite supporting some of the world’s most threatened marine species, according to a new study. Published in Biodiversity and Conservation, the study assessed the network of important shark and ray areas [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — The majority of 122 marine areas identified across Asia as critical for the survival of sharks, rays and chimaeras remain largely unprotected despite supporting some of the world’s most threatened marine species, according to a new study. Published in Biodiversity and Conservation, the study assessed the network of important shark and ray areas (ISRAs) across 19 Asian countries and territories and found that only 5.4% of their total area overlaps with recognized marine protected areas (MPAs). Just 2.8% falls within fully protected no-take zones where extractive activities are strictly prohibited. Critically endangered sharpnose guitarfish landed from the Palk Bay ISRA are recorded in a fish market in the village of Mathagal, Sri Lanka&#8217;s Jaffna district. Fish markets and landing sites are valuable points for fisheries data collection and monitoring. Image courtesy of Blue Resources Trust. Together, these ISRAs cover more than 1 million square kilometers (approximately 386,102 square miles) of ocean and support sharks, rays and chimaeras, also known by the umbrella term elasmobranchs. Nearly three-quarters of these species are listed as threatened with extinction on the IUCN red list, highlighting the urgency of conserving these habitats, said study lead author Adriana Gonzalez-Pestana, a Ph.D. candidate at Charles Darwin University (CDU) in Australia and member of the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group ISRA project. IUCN is the global wildlife conservation authority. Critically endangered stripenose guitarfish caught within the Pasikuda &amp; Kalkuda ISRA in Sri Lanka&#8217;s east and being sold at a local fishery. Image courtesy of Blue Resources&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321855</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Four alleged wildlife traffickers arrested in Guinea, dried seahorses and shark fins seized</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/four-alleged-wildlife-traffickers-arrested-in-guinea-dried-seahorses-and-shark-fins-seized/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/four-alleged-wildlife-traffickers-arrested-in-guinea-dried-seahorses-and-shark-fins-seized/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jun 2026 14:49:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/10130933/West-African-Seahorse-Hippocampus-algiricus-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320913</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, China, Guinea, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Seahorses, shark finning, Sharks, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[An undercover operation by Guinean authorities in the capital Conakry caught four men in possession of more than 2,000 dried seahorses and 26 kg (57 lbs) of shark and ray fins on May 22, 2026. According to a press release, the seizure was supported by the Guinea branch of the anti-wildlife trafficking NGO Eco Activists [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[An undercover operation by Guinean authorities in the capital Conakry caught four men in possession of more than 2,000 dried seahorses and 26 kg (57 lbs) of shark and ray fins on May 22, 2026. According to a press release, the seizure was supported by the Guinea branch of the anti-wildlife trafficking NGO Eco Activists for Governance and Law Enforcement (EAGLE). EAGLE identified the arrested men as Daouda Camara, Thierno Sadou Bah, Sekou Soumah, and Abdoulaye Camara, all Guinean nationals aged between 20 and 55 years old. The NGO told Mongabay they are believed to be part of a transnational criminal network operating across West Africa. The network has been involved in smuggling wildlife for more than four decades, but none of those arrested were previously known to law enforcement authorities. Antonia Gustafsson, coordinator of EAGLE Guinée, said the alleged traffickers were trying to sell dried seahorses to Chinese nationals in the country, who would then illegally ship them to China. When authorities searched a storage facility linked to the traffickers, they found the stashed shark and ray fins. Shark and ray fins are key ingredients in shark fin soup, a delicacy in much of China and Southeast Asia. Dried seahorses are in high demand in China as they are used in traditional Chinese medicine preparations. Both products are high-value seafood and a highly lucrative trade: Prices for dried seahorses have peaked as high as $600/kg. Seized shark and ray fins, which were destined for export to China, where they&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/four-alleged-wildlife-traffickers-arrested-in-guinea-dried-seahorses-and-shark-fins-seized/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/four-alleged-wildlife-traffickers-arrested-in-guinea-dried-seahorses-and-shark-fins-seized/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320913</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Latin America&#8217;s largest hospital complex cancels plan to buy shark meat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/latin-americas-largest-hospital-complex-cancels-plan-to-buy-shark-meat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/latin-americas-largest-hospital-complex-cancels-plan-to-buy-shark-meat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2026 14:59:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Karla MendesLucas BertiPhilip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/07100614/shark-meat-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317005</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Shark Meat Nation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Consumption, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fishing, Food, Food Industry, Health, Industry, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Public Health, Regulations, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The University of São Paulo Medical School Hospital said it would cancel a plan to buy more than 17 metric tons of shark meat as part of a 2026 procurement, citing concerns over heavy metals. HCFMUSP is the largest public hospital complex in Latin America. It consists of at least eight institutes in São Paulo, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The University of São Paulo Medical School Hospital said it would cancel a plan to buy more than 17 metric tons of shark meat as part of a 2026 procurement, citing concerns over heavy metals. HCFMUSP is the largest public hospital complex in Latin America. It consists of at least eight institutes in São Paulo, Brazil&#8217;s largest city, including a world-renowned heart center serving hundreds of thousands of patients annually. Brazil is the world’s top consumer of shark meat. A 2025 investigation by Mongabay found that government purchases are a significant driver of Brazil’s shark meat consumption, with the low-priced meat served in thousands of hospitals, schools and prisons in the South American nation of 213 million people. HCFMUSP issued tenders and named suppliers for at least 135 metric tons of shark meat from 2008-20, the Mongabay investigation found. After it learned HCFMUSP had issued another shark meat tender in February 2026, the NGO Sea Shepherd Brasil wrote a letter to hospital administrators asking them to rethink their plans. The letter argued that sharks are widely threatened and that their meat tends to contain high levels of heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic, posing a risk to human health. In late March, HCFMUSP announced it would remove shark meat from the 2026 procurement, citing “a proven toxicological risk associated with heavy metals” and the advocacy from Sea Shepherd. “HCFMUSP reaffirms its commitment to nutritional excellence and the safety of the supplies provided at its facilities,” it wrote on social&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/latin-americas-largest-hospital-complex-cancels-plan-to-buy-shark-meat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/latin-americas-largest-hospital-complex-cancels-plan-to-buy-shark-meat/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317005</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The lab-in-a-backpack busting illegal shark fins: Interview with Diego Cardeñosa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-lab-in-a-backpack-busting-illegal-shark-fins-interview-with-diego-cardenosa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-lab-in-a-backpack-busting-illegal-shark-fins-interview-with-diego-cardenosa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Dec 2025 03:38:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/30123813/hammerheads-771x434-1-768x434.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311551</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[China and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, DNA, Ecosystems, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Law Enforcement, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Diego Cardeñosa always knew he wanted to study sharks. But when he started his Ph.D., he had to make a choice: tagging sharks in the field — the “fun,” typically more-sought-after path — or studying their DNA in a lab. “I went for maybe not the most attractive in the sense of field trips, because [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Diego Cardeñosa always knew he wanted to study sharks. But when he started his Ph.D., he had to make a choice: tagging sharks in the field — the “fun,” typically more-sought-after path — or studying their DNA in a lab. “I went for maybe not the most attractive in the sense of field trips, because it was getting stuck in a little tiny stinky lab in Hong Kong full of dried fins,” he told Mongabay. “But I knew what the science we were doing was going to produce.” His efforts paid off. After years of research, Cardeñosa pioneered a forensic tool that can quickly and cheaply detect if a dried shark fin comes from a protected species. Like a rapid COVID-19 test, the device has helped inspectors in Hong Kong, the world’s largest shark fin trade hub, crack down on an illegal trade that has helped pushed many shark species — there are more than 500 — to the brink of extinction. The tool empowers inspectors who previously had to wave through suspicious shipments because they didn’t have enough time to wait for a DNA lab test. “It solves that very key early-detection step that until now was difficult,” Cardeñosa said. Now he’s rolling it out in other countries, from Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, to the U.S., Sri Lanka and Tanzania, with, he hopes, more to come. Data produced by Cardeñosa’s shark fin identification kit has also informed measures to list dozens of shark species under the protection of CITES,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-lab-in-a-backpack-busting-illegal-shark-fins-interview-with-diego-cardenosa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-lab-in-a-backpack-busting-illegal-shark-fins-interview-with-diego-cardenosa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311551</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mongabay launches dedicated Oceans Desk to expand global reporting on marine ecosystems</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/mongabay-launches-dedicated-oceans-desk-to-expand-global-reporting-on-marine-ecosystems/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/mongabay-launches-dedicated-oceans-desk-to-expand-global-reporting-on-marine-ecosystems/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2025 21:39:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alejandroprescottcornejo]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/11211024/Adobe-Express-file-34-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309341</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, China, Global, and Latin America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Ecosystems, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Mongabay investigation, Oceans, Oil Spills, shark finning, and Sharks]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With increasing pressures from overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and climate change, the health of the world’s oceans is imperiled. In response, Mongabay has launched a dedicated Oceans Desk composed of a global team of journalists specialized in reporting on oceans, fisheries and marine conservation. The desk, which includes editors, reporters and program directors from across [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With increasing pressures from overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and climate change, the health of the world’s oceans is imperiled. In response, Mongabay has launched a dedicated Oceans Desk composed of a global team of journalists specialized in reporting on oceans, fisheries and marine conservation. The desk, which includes editors, reporters and program directors from across Mongabay’s newsroom, marks a strategic shift to deepen coverage of marine ecosystems as part of the organization’s expanding environmental reporting. “One of our goals at Mongabay is to provide a planetary view of the environment, and understanding the ocean is crucial for grasping the state of life on Earth,” said Willie Shubert, Mongabay’s VP of programs and executive editor. “Our Oceans Desk delivers original and insightful journalism on often underreported topics that highlight humanity&#8217;s cultural, economic and political connections to the sea while also emphasizing the intrinsic value of a living and biodiverse ocean.” Driven by high reader interest, Mongabay’s oceans coverage has steadily expanded to become a top priority for the organization, with thousands of articles, videos and podcasts already published. “The ocean is vast and powerful, but threats from overfishing, climate change, pollution, and crime are pushing it to the brink,” Shubert said. “The voices of communities dependent on a healthy ocean, from fishers and marine biologists to policymakers and consumers, must be part of the story to address these problems. By building a dedicated desk that reports daily from across the world, we aim to inspire people to care for marine biodiversity&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/mongabay-launches-dedicated-oceans-desk-to-expand-global-reporting-on-marine-ecosystems/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/mongabay-launches-dedicated-oceans-desk-to-expand-global-reporting-on-marine-ecosystems/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-309341</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sharks didn’t rebound—so Mark Erdmann is putting them back</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/sharks-didnt-rebound-so-mark-erdmann-is-putting-them-back/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/sharks-didnt-rebound-so-mark-erdmann-is-putting-them-back/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jul 2025 12:42:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/11183735/Mark-recovery-swim-thresher-17-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302225</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Nature conservation Influencers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua, Southeast Asia, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Carnivores, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Ecosystems, Ecotourism, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Green, Hope and optimism, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Predators, Protected Areas, Reintroductions, Restoration, Rewilding, shark finning, Sharks, Species Discovery, Technology, Tourism, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For more than three decades, Mark Erdmann has worked where many only dream of diving—on the reefs and in the tangled mangroves of Indonesia’s farthest reaches. A marine biologist by training and a conservationist by necessity, Erdmann has spent much of his life documenting new species, persuading local communities to back marine protection, and fighting [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For more than three decades, Mark Erdmann has worked where many only dream of diving—on the reefs and in the tangled mangroves of Indonesia’s farthest reaches. A marine biologist by training and a conservationist by necessity, Erdmann has spent much of his life documenting new species, persuading local communities to back marine protection, and fighting off the encroachment of extractive industries. His career, by his own account, has spanned more than 220 species discoveries, a handful of close encounters with crocodiles, and the creation of a new model for shark rewilding. Erdmann’s journey began in a remote island village off the coast of South Sulawesi in 1991, where he arrived as a Ph.D. student studying coral reef ecology. His neighbors, he quickly realized, were bomb fishers and shark finners. The shift from science to action was swift. “It was clear that more than science was needed; active protection was critical,” he recalls. That realization became a life’s work. As Vice President of Asia-Pacific Marine Programs at Conservation International and now Executive Director of ReShark and Shark Conservation Director at Re:wild, Erdmann has been at the forefront of efforts to transform marine protection from a top-down regulatory exercise to a bottom-up, community-owned endeavor. Few places showcase this as clearly as Raja Ampat, the archipelago off West Papua that has become the crown jewel of Indonesian marine conservation. Wayag lagoon release site in Indonesia&#8217;s Raja Ampat. Photo by Mark Erdmann. When Erdmann first visited Raja Ampat in 2001, the coral reefs were&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/sharks-didnt-rebound-so-mark-erdmann-is-putting-them-back/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/sharks-didnt-rebound-so-mark-erdmann-is-putting-them-back/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302225</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>What sharks are worth—and why that matters</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/what-sharks-are-worth-and-why-that-matters/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/what-sharks-are-worth-and-why-that-matters/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jun 2025 12:40:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/22161255/stefanie-header-Phil-Waller-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300964</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Hawaii and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Green, Interviews, Marine Conservation, Oceans, shark finning, Sharks, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Shark conservation is not a field for the faint of heart. It pits biology against commerce, sentiment against symbolism, and, frequently, science against entrenched bureaucracies. Sharks themselves, apex predators honed over hundreds of millions of years, are now among the most imperiled inhabitants of the world’s oceans. Vilified in pop culture, sliced up for their [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Shark conservation is not a field for the faint of heart. It pits biology against commerce, sentiment against symbolism, and, frequently, science against entrenched bureaucracies. Sharks themselves, apex predators honed over hundreds of millions of years, are now among the most imperiled inhabitants of the world’s oceans. Vilified in pop culture, sliced up for their fins, and managed more like commodities than living creatures, sharks have few allies in high places. One of the more persistent, however, is Stefanie Brendl. Brendl did not arrive at shark advocacy by way of academia, marine biology, or institutional science. Her background was in scuba diving and ecotourism, and her immersion in shark conservation began not in a laboratory but in the ocean itself. What began as a fascination morphed into a calling, spurred by a single free-diving encounter with a tiger shark: A moment Brendl describes as transformative, almost mythic in tone. But it was what followed that mattered. Within a week, she was inside Hawaii’s legislative chambers, helping craft America’s first major ban on the shark fin trade. That campaign would become a blueprint. Hawaii’s legislative success ricocheted outward, eventually helping to inspire similar laws across the United States and in parts of the Pacific. Brendl founded Shark Allies to institutionalize her advocacy and has since combined policy work, public education, and strategic coalition-building to pursue greater protections for sharks and rays. Great white shark at Guadalupe. Image by Stefanie Brendl. While the victories are real, Brendl is clear-eyed about their limitations.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/what-sharks-are-worth-and-why-that-matters/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/what-sharks-are-worth-and-why-that-matters/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-300964</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Community-based conservation cuts thresher shark fishing by 91% in Indonesia: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/community-based-conservation-cuts-thresher-shark-fishing-by-91-in-indonesia-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/community-based-conservation-cuts-thresher-shark-fishing-by-91-in-indonesia-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Mar 2025 03:16:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/25085722/7123834169_0bc475c3e9_o-1-scaled-768x512-1.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296401</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Elasmobranchs, Fisheries, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, shark finning, Sharks, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — A thresher shark conservation effort in eastern Indonesia focusing on alternative sources of income has reduced up to 90% of catches of the globally endangered species, a new study shows. For decades, the pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus) has been a primary target for small-scale fishing communities in Alor Archipelago of Indonesia’s East [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — A thresher shark conservation effort in eastern Indonesia focusing on alternative sources of income has reduced up to 90% of catches of the globally endangered species, a new study shows. For decades, the pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus) has been a primary target for small-scale fishing communities in Alor Archipelago of Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province for decades, sustaining subsistence livelihoods and serving as a protein source. However, this shark’s population across the Indo-Pacific has dwindled 50-79% over the last three generations, with Indonesia — as the world’s largest shark fishing nation — seeing severe declines of an estimated reduction of up to 83%. A group of researchers and conservationists from Indonesia and the U.K. recently published their study showing that implementing zero thresher fishing coupled with bottom-up livelihood-based conservation intervention lowered shark catches by 91% among participating fishers compared with non-participants. The participants also experienced increases in their income, in some cases by 5.2 times relative to the income before the intervention. “The rationale behind safe-guarding manta rays and whale sharks lies in their non-extractive value, notably from tourism (&#8230;) In contrast, pelagic threshers continue to be valued as an extractive fisheries resource, particularly for their fins and meat, which are consumed locally,” Rafid A. Shidqi, a Ph.D. student at Duke University and co-founder of Thresher Shark Indonesia who is the lead author, wrote in the paper published Feb. 11 in the journal Oryx. A pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus). Image by Rafn Ingi Finnsson via Flickr&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/community-based-conservation-cuts-thresher-shark-fishing-by-91-in-indonesia-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296401</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New evidence spells massive trouble for world’s sharks, rays and chimaeras</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/new-evidence-spells-massive-trouble-for-worlds-sharks-rays-and-chimaeras/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/new-evidence-spells-massive-trouble-for-worlds-sharks-rays-and-chimaeras/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jan 2025 14:30:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/02141137/Bottlenose-wedgefish%C2%A9Rainer-von-Brandis-Save-Our-Seas-Foundation-Copyright-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=292607</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Bycatch, Conservation, Consumption, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Food, Food Industry, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Research, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife consumption, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Evolution has perfected the world’s sharks and rays for more than 420 million years. Unlike the ammonites or pterosaurs that they once shared the oceans with, sharks and rays persevered through five mass extinctions. But now, their resilience has been put to test by a human folly: overfishing. In 2023, the Java stingaree (Urolophus javanicus) [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Evolution has perfected the world’s sharks and rays for more than 420 million years. Unlike the ammonites or pterosaurs that they once shared the oceans with, sharks and rays persevered through five mass extinctions. But now, their resilience has been put to test by a human folly: overfishing. In 2023, the Java stingaree (Urolophus javanicus) became the first marine fish on record to have gone extinct because of humans. If our current fishing trends continue, it won’t be the last, scientists warn in a recently published report and a study. The new IUCN report, put together by more than 350 experts from more than 100 countries, finds that overfishing is the biggest threat to the world’s 1,266 species of sharks, rays and chimaeras (a distantly related deep-sea order of fish often called “ghost sharks”). Building on previous population assessments and new knowledge gained in the past two decades, the IUCN report identifies global and local threats to sharks and rays found in 158 countries with a coastline. “The report is a call for action,” said report lead author Rima Jabado, who chairs the Shark Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. “We know so much more [about sharks and rays] than we used to 20 years ago but it&#8217;s not all beautiful and rosy … and we need to be doing something about it.” The report finds Indonesia, Spain and India top the world’s shark-fishing countries, followed by Mexico and the U.S. While only a quarter of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/new-evidence-spells-massive-trouble-for-worlds-sharks-rays-and-chimaeras/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/new-evidence-spells-massive-trouble-for-worlds-sharks-rays-and-chimaeras/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-292607</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Clock ticks on Indonesia shark skinners as predator population plunges</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/clock-ticks-on-indonesia-shark-skinners-as-predator-population-plunges/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/clock-ticks-on-indonesia-shark-skinners-as-predator-population-plunges/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Sep 2024 16:28:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Asad Asnawi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/25081340/sharks-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287812</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Java, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bycatch, Conservation, Consumption, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Food, Food Industry, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overconsumption, Overfishing, Predators, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife consumption, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LAMONGAN, Indonesia — Sulaiman is so practiced at stripping a zebra shark that he can skin the animal in just a few minutes. He sticks a knife into the meter-long (3-foot) fish and strips the skin away clean from the flesh and cartilage as morning breaks over East Java province. “It’s only a few types [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LAMONGAN, Indonesia — Sulaiman is so practiced at stripping a zebra shark that he can skin the animal in just a few minutes. He sticks a knife into the meter-long (3-foot) fish and strips the skin away clean from the flesh and cartilage as morning breaks over East Java province. “It’s only a few types [of sharks] that are skinned,” Sulaiman, not his real name, told Mongabay Indonesia at Brondong harbor, one of Indonesia’s largest fishing ports. Once skin and fins are separated from the shark on the dock by knife-wielding fishers like Sulaiman, a network of distributors transport these products from Brondong to storage for up to a month. Most shark meat is processed locally by drying, salting or smoking before being sold on to retailers or restaurants. Finished products join a supply chain that is poorly covered by international oversight. Mongabay has previously reported on the troubles afflicting fishing hubs along the northern Java coast, an area known as Pantura. Fishers along the Pantura are floundering against an incoming tide of thinner fish stocks and a government ban on the purse seine, vast nets with a tight weave that are ruthlessly effective but notorious for high levels of indiscriminate bycatch. The world’s largest archipelago country is recorded as the world&#8217;s top shark catcher and a major exporter of shark products, including fins, liver oil, meat and skin. More than 200 of the world’s 1,250 shark species are found patrolling the reef passes and deepwater trenches across Indonesia. While&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/clock-ticks-on-indonesia-shark-skinners-as-predator-population-plunges/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/clock-ticks-on-indonesia-shark-skinners-as-predator-population-plunges/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-287812</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Shark fin consumption wanes in Thailand, yet demand persists, report shows</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/shark-fin-consumption-wanes-in-thailand-yet-demand-persists-report-shows/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/shark-fin-consumption-wanes-in-thailand-yet-demand-persists-report-shows/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jul 2024 15:10:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/29145720/Banner_OceanImageBank_AnitaKainrath-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=285248</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bycatch, Conservation, Consumption, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Food, Food Industry, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Overfishing, Research, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife consumption, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Consumption of shark fin has declined by more than one-third in Thailand since 2017, according to a new report from wildlife advocacy group WildAid. But with more than half of urban Thai citizens reporting they still plan to eat shark in the future, demand remains high. “Thais are becoming more aware of the importance of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Consumption of shark fin has declined by more than one-third in Thailand since 2017, according to a new report from wildlife advocacy group WildAid. But with more than half of urban Thai citizens reporting they still plan to eat shark in the future, demand remains high. “Thais are becoming more aware of the importance of sharks to the ocean,” Petch Manopawitr, a conservation scientist and Thailand program adviser at WildAid, said in a statement. “[However], not only does the demand for shark fin persist, but sharks are becoming more commonly used in pet food and snacks as well.” The report, based on interviews with 1,007 urban-dwelling members of the Thai public, looks at changes in shark-fin consumption patterns in Thailand between 2017 and 2023. The surveys also gauged people’s opinions of sharks and products derived from them. According to the findings, the number of city-based shark-fin consumers in Thailand has dropped from around 6.6 million to roughly 5.3 million citizens over the past 7 years, reflecting a 34% decrease in the number of servings of shark fin soup, a status symbol dish, consumed per year. Most people who eat shark do so at social gatherings, such as family gatherings and weddings, the study found. A hammerhead shark caught in a fishing net. Image by Toby Matthews/Ocean Image Bank. As the ocean’s top predators, sharks play a vital role in maintaining balance within the food chain. Yet despite their crucial importance, shark numbers have been decimated by overfishing, bycatch and consumer&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/shark-fin-consumption-wanes-in-thailand-yet-demand-persists-report-shows/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/shark-fin-consumption-wanes-in-thailand-yet-demand-persists-report-shows/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-285248</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Undercover in a shark fin trafficking ring: Interview with wildlife crime fighter Andrea Crosta</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/undercover-in-a-shark-fin-trafficking-ring-interview-with-wildlife-crime-fighter-andrea-crosta/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/undercover-in-a-shark-fin-trafficking-ring-interview-with-wildlife-crime-fighter-andrea-crosta/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 May 2024 13:25:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/16115935/corals-and-sharks-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=282021</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Wildlife Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, China, East Asia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Poaching, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife, Wildlife consumption, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Philip Jacobson is a fellow. Four years of investigating jaguar parts trafficking rings in Latin America led Andrea Crosta to a grim realization: The same smugglers were often involved in a variety of illegal enterprises, including moving different kinds of wildlife products across [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Philip Jacobson is a fellow. Four years of investigating jaguar parts trafficking rings in Latin America led Andrea Crosta to a grim realization: The same smugglers were often involved in a variety of illegal enterprises, including moving different kinds of wildlife products across national borders. Especially shark fins. “We kept stumbling upon shark fin trafficking — it was the same people,” Crosta told Mongabay. “And it happened everywhere: It happened in Bolivia, in Peru, in Ecuador, in Suriname.” The Italian-born, Los Angeles-based Crosta is the founder of Earth League International, a small conservation NGO that operates like a mini-FBI, using undercover operatives to infiltrate wildlife trafficking networks while feeding information to law enforcement about the key players and their modi operandi. The job is easier said than done: the smugglers tend to be better organized than their adversaries in government, who fail to collaborate with their counterparts overseas as effectively as the traffickers do, according to Crosta. “On the one hand we have very organized crime, and on the other hand very disorganized law enforcement agencies,” Crosta said. In April, ELI published a report about shark fin trafficking in Latin America, detailing five case studies involving 10 trafficking networks operating transnationally. Individuals’ names are redacted, but the report describes dozens of them in colorful terms: &#8220;a Chinese timber trafficker in San Jose who uses a solar panel company as a cover,” for example; “a Cantonese leader of SA1&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/undercover-in-a-shark-fin-trafficking-ring-interview-with-wildlife-crime-fighter-andrea-crosta/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/undercover-in-a-shark-fin-trafficking-ring-interview-with-wildlife-crime-fighter-andrea-crosta/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-282021</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rewilding program ships eggs around the world to restore Raja Ampat zebra sharks</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/rewilding-program-ships-eggs-around-the-world-to-restore-raja-ampat-zebra-sharks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/rewilding-program-ships-eggs-around-the-world-to-restore-raja-ampat-zebra-sharks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Apr 2024 17:21:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/08163229/53136044389_48d065eff2_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=280731</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Australia, Indonesia, Papua, Southeast Asia, United States, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Illegal Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Protected Areas, Rewilding, Saving Species From Extinction, shark finning, Sharks, Species, Trade, Wildlife, Wildlife consumption, Wildlife Rehabilitation, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia — Nearly a million people visit the Shark Reef Aquarium on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada every year. There’s a chance they see zebra sharks (Stegostoma tigrinum) among the more than 15 shark species roaming the aquarium. But they might not be aware that those zebra sharks are a part of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia — Nearly a million people visit the Shark Reef Aquarium on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada every year. There’s a chance they see zebra sharks (Stegostoma tigrinum) among the more than 15 shark species roaming the aquarium. But they might not be aware that those zebra sharks are a part of a rewilding project that tries to save the shark from extinction — the first of its kind in the world. In 2023, eggs from the aquarium sharks were shipped more than 12,100 kilometers (7,500 miles) to the Raja Ampat archipelago in eastern Indonesia. A couple of them recently hatched, with two new sharks emerging, named Buddy and Marshal. Both sharks are now being kept in a nursery on the island of Kri, hosted by the Raja Ampat Research and Conservation Centre (RARCC), a nonprofit of Papua Diving. When Mongabay visited the hatchery at the end of January, the two juvenile sharks were kept in separate tanks. They were being fed daily, with food that is naturally available in their habitat, to the point where they would be strong enough to be released into the wild. A Zebra shark named Buddy swimming in a tank at a hatchery in Raja Ampat. Image by Ridzki R. Sigit/Mongabay. The shark rewilding project, called StAR (Stegostoma tigrinum Augmentation and Recovery) project, is an initiative that focuses on restoring zebra shark populations back to their natural habitat. Only 20 zebra sharks are estimated to remain in Raja Ampat due to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/rewilding-program-ships-eggs-around-the-world-to-restore-raja-ampat-zebra-sharks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/rewilding-program-ships-eggs-around-the-world-to-restore-raja-ampat-zebra-sharks/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-280731</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>DNA probe uncovers threatened shark species in Thailand’s markets</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/dna-probe-uncovers-threatened-shark-species-in-thailands-markets/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/dna-probe-uncovers-threatened-shark-species-in-thailands-markets/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jan 2024 15:18:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/30145537/BANNER_OceanImageBank_MasayukiAgawa_4-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278239</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bycatch, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, DNA, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Food, International Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Predators, Research, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Top Predators, Wildlife, Wildlife consumption, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Shark conservation groups in Thailand are calling for greater marine protections and improved traceability in shark trade supply chains following a study that identified threatened shark species in products commonly sold in the country’s markets. The DNA-based study detected 15 shark species in products sampled from retail markets, restaurants, warehouses, seaports and fish landing sites [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Shark conservation groups in Thailand are calling for greater marine protections and improved traceability in shark trade supply chains following a study that identified threatened shark species in products commonly sold in the country’s markets. The DNA-based study detected 15 shark species in products sampled from retail markets, restaurants, warehouses, seaports and fish landing sites around Thailand. More than half were species listed as threatened with extinction (vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered) on the IUCN Red List, including great hammerheads (Sphyrna mokarran), scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) and sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus). The research team, comprising Thailand’s Department of Fisheries, wildlife advocacy group WildAid and Thailand-based researchers, published their findings last year in Conservation Genetics. In a new report highlighting the implications of the findings, WildAid points to shortcomings with traceability in the international shark fin trade and urges the public to say “no” to shark fin and other shark-derived products. “What we discovered was probably just the tip of an iceberg,” Petch Manopawitr, a conservation scientist and Thailand program adviser at WildAid, told Mongabay. Given the shark fin trade is notoriously opaque and difficult to monitor, Petch said there’s currently no means of reliably tracing where the sharks identified in the study came from, how they were caught, or by whom. What is clear, however, is that consumers of shark products, such as shark fin soup, are risking complicity in the demise of keystone species that could have knock-on consequences for the health of the world’s oceans. “To put it&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/dna-probe-uncovers-threatened-shark-species-in-thailands-markets/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/dna-probe-uncovers-threatened-shark-species-in-thailands-markets/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-278239</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Global shark deaths increasing despite finning bans, study shows</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/global-shark-deaths-increasing-despite-finning-bans-study-shows/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/global-shark-deaths-increasing-despite-finning-bans-study-shows/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jan 2024 14:04:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/17133348/oceanic-whitetip-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277749</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Food, Food Industry, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Politics, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife consumption, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Shark finning bans have had little effect on protecting global shark populations, according to new research. However, shark mortality decreased in pelagic fisheries, which suggests that regulatory measures in regional fisheries have had some positive impact. In a new study published in Science, an international team of researchers analyzed shark catch data from 150 countries [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Shark finning bans have had little effect on protecting global shark populations, according to new research. However, shark mortality decreased in pelagic fisheries, which suggests that regulatory measures in regional fisheries have had some positive impact. In a new study published in Science, an international team of researchers analyzed shark catch data from 150 countries and the high seas between 2012 and 2019, and also conducted in-depth interviews with shark fishery experts to comprehend the fate of an estimated 1.1 billion sharks caught by fisheries around the world. The research finds that shark mortality increased by an estimated 4% in coastal fisheries between 2012 and 2019. In contrast, regulated fisheries on the high seas, especially across the Atlantic and western Pacific, decreased by about 7%. However, the authors suggest these figures are likely underestimated due to the difficulty of tracking and collating fisheries data. Over the study’s seven-year span, legislation to ban shark finning increased tenfold. For instance, in 2012, several nations, including Brazil, Taiwan and Venezuela, dictated that fishers must land sharks whole, without their fins cut off, in attempts to deter the practice of shark finning. Other nations banned shark fishing altogether, which is what Fiji did in 2013. Other regulations aimed at protecting sharks were also enacted during the study period. For example, in 2012, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, a tuna regional fishery management organization that works to conserve tuna and other marine species in the eastern Pacific Ocean, banned the fishing and selling of oceanic&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/global-shark-deaths-increasing-despite-finning-bans-study-shows/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277749</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Still on the menu: Shark fin trade in U.S. persists despite ban</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/still-on-the-menu-shark-fin-trade-in-u-s-persists-despite-ban/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/still-on-the-menu-shark-fin-trade-in-u-s-persists-despite-ban/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Dec 2023 09:15:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/26163522/whale-shark-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277033</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, North America, Peru, South America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Food, Food Industry, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Politics, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife, Wildlife consumption, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The trade in shark fins is still underway in the United States, despite legislation making such activities illegal, an investigative report has found. Environmentalists say this indicates that officials need to do more to enforce the laws already in place to stamp out illegal activities and protect sharks, which are globally threatened with extinction. On [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The trade in shark fins is still underway in the United States, despite legislation making such activities illegal, an investigative report has found. Environmentalists say this indicates that officials need to do more to enforce the laws already in place to stamp out illegal activities and protect sharks, which are globally threatened with extinction. On Dec. 6, Al Jazeera English released a documentary about the illegal shark fin trade between South America and the United States, as part of its “Fault Lines” program. Led by senior correspondent Josh Rushing, the report begins in Chimbote, Peru, where environmental prosecutor Evelyn LaMadrid investigates a fin-drying operation at a local shop, where illegally sourced shark fins were being dried and prepared for sale. While shark finning is prohibited in Peru (meaning that sharks must be landed with their fins still attached), there are few other restrictions on the shark trade. For instance, Peru allows the export of shark fins, although the nation must comply with any restrictions established by CITES, the international convention on the wildlife trade. During the investigation, LaMadrid and her team end up confiscating 180 kilograms (nearly 400 pounds) of dried shark fins from nine different species, including endangered whale sharks (Rhincodon typus). In 2018, LaMadrid also spearheaded an operation to arrest two people illegally trafficking 1,800 kg (nearly 4,000 lbs) of shark fins, which eventually led to the nation’s first conviction and jail sentence for this crime in 2022. Sharks cast aside after being finned. Image by Sebastián Losada&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/still-on-the-menu-shark-fin-trade-in-u-s-persists-despite-ban/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/still-on-the-menu-shark-fin-trade-in-u-s-persists-despite-ban/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277033</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The ex-shark fishermen teaching schoolkids how to protect the environment</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/the-ex-shark-fishermen-teaching-schoolkids-how-to-protect-the-environment/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/the-ex-shark-fishermen-teaching-schoolkids-how-to-protect-the-environment/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Dec 2023 02:27:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Turrell]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/11150159/blacktip-reef-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=276555</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Lombok, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Ecosystems, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, and Sharks]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LOMBOK, Indonesia — Suhardi, 43, glides across a technicolor coral garden. Freediving down to the seafloor, he scoops up a handful of sand that he sprinkles over the reef. The reef becomes a blur of color as reef fish scurry from all four corners to see what delicacies can be found among the falling grains. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LOMBOK, Indonesia — Suhardi, 43, glides across a technicolor coral garden. Freediving down to the seafloor, he scoops up a handful of sand that he sprinkles over the reef. The reef becomes a blur of color as reef fish scurry from all four corners to see what delicacies can be found among the falling grains. Powering through the current, Suhardi looks more at home than he does on shore. He points out a trumpetfish hovering over the reef below us, and a painterly Picasso triggerfish swimming by. Then Suhardi’s pace quickens as he points into the distance. He’s seen something that my untrained eyes are yet to pick up. He stays hovering above the reef knowing it’s still there. Then a blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) suddenly comes into view. Suhardi isn’t your average snorkeling guide. Born on the Indonesian island of Lombok, he’s spent his life on water. While he now seeks out sharks for the enjoyment of tourists, he once hunted sharks to help earn money to feed his family and educate his two children. Suhardi was a fisherman for more than 20 years. He first started fishing working on his parents’ boat, but was then asked to join the crew of a shark boat where he was told he could earn a lot of money. Back on deck, he looks embarrassed to divulge what a meager wage it was, but finally confesses he earned around $50 for up to a month at sea. Now he and 12&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/the-ex-shark-fishermen-teaching-schoolkids-how-to-protect-the-environment/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/the-ex-shark-fishermen-teaching-schoolkids-how-to-protect-the-environment/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-276555</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sharks deserve our appreciation and protection  (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/sharks-deserve-our-fascination-and-protection-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/sharks-deserve-our-fascination-and-protection-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jul 2023 15:12:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Assaf Levy]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/15163636/OceanImageBank_HannesKlostermann_55-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=270901</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bycatch, Commentary, Conservation, Ecosystems, Elasmobranchs, Fisheries, Fishing, Illegal Fishing, Illegal Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Overfishing, shark finning, Sharks, Trade, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[July 14 is Shark Awareness Day, an annual reminder to raise awareness of these incredible creatures that roam the oceans. Sharks and rays belong to a group of fish known as elasmobranchs, which includes over 1,200 species. Sadly, in 2023 more than one-third of these species are at risk. Sharks and rays, in contrast to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[July 14 is Shark Awareness Day, an annual reminder to raise awareness of these incredible creatures that roam the oceans. Sharks and rays belong to a group of fish known as elasmobranchs, which includes over 1,200 species. Sadly, in 2023 more than one-third of these species are at risk. Sharks and rays, in contrast to most fish, have skeletons formed of cartilage rather than bones, which gives them flexibility and helps them move gracefully in the water. They are not mammals like whales and dolphins; rays and sharks are fishes, and scientists are still discovering new species, showing just how diverse our oceans are. Sharks and rays play an important role in maintaining the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. They have a huge impact on regulating the populations of other marine species as apex predators, contributing to the overall health and stability of the seas, we at BioDB.com believe. Also, their scavenging behavior helps remove organic materials from the environment, contributing to nutrient cycling. Their presence can also create habitat diversity by influencing the behavior and distribution of other species. Today, however, they face numerous challenges. Overfishing, driven by demand for their meat, fins, and liver oil is a major threat to their survival. Additionally, the unintended capture of sharks and rays in fishing nets, known as bycatch, further compounds the problem. Loss of habitats and prey, as well as human disturbances and the overall degradation of our oceans, also threaten their existence. A blacktip reef shark swims among smaller&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/sharks-deserve-our-fascination-and-protection-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-270901</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Costa Rica announces ban on fishing of hammerhead sharks</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/costa-rica-announces-ban-on-fishing-of-hammerhead-sharks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/costa-rica-announces-ban-on-fishing-of-hammerhead-sharks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Feb 2023 20:43:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Maxradwin]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/02/10200742/FEATURE-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=265500</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Costa Rica, and Latin America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environmental Law, Fish, Fishing, Governance, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Protected Areas, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY — Fishing for hammerhead sharks is now illegal in Costa Rica, thanks to the signing of a new executive decree this month by President Rodrigo Chaves Robles. The decree prohibits the capture, transportation, storage or sale of hammerhead sharks or their byproducts, such as fins and teeth. Banned species include the smooth hammerhead [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY — Fishing for hammerhead sharks is now illegal in Costa Rica, thanks to the signing of a new executive decree this month by President Rodrigo Chaves Robles. The decree prohibits the capture, transportation, storage or sale of hammerhead sharks or their byproducts, such as fins and teeth. Banned species include the smooth hammerhead (Sphyrna zygaena), scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini) and great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran). Despite being critically endangered — and protected under CITES Appendix II — hammerhead sharks have been bought and sold in Costa Rica for years. The animals are prized for their fins, which are often sent to countries like China to be used in shark fin soup, considered a delicacy. “This is too late and it’s way too little,” said Randall Arauz, a biologist with Marine Watch International. “Of course I’m happy they banned hammerhead shark fishing. But hammerhead sharks were listed under CITES by initiative of Costa Rica in 2013 and it was their obligation to ban hammerhead shark fishing commercialization, extraction, everything. That’s been our battle for the last ten years.” In that time, Arauz said hammerhead shark populations in Costa Rica have declined by around 90%. A Scalloped Hammerhead Shark. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia) Different presidents have, over the last decade, gone back and forth about hammerhead shark protections, in part over concern for the wellbeing of the fishing industry. Former president Luis Guillermo Solís issued a decree in 2017 legalizing much of the shark trade only for the decree to be&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/costa-rica-announces-ban-on-fishing-of-hammerhead-sharks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-265500</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>More than half of reef sharks and rays threatened with extinction, study shows</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/more-than-half-of-reef-sharks-and-rays-threatened-with-extinction-study-shows/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/more-than-half-of-reef-sharks-and-rays-threatened-with-extinction-study-shows/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jan 2023 16:17:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/01/25073810/1024px-Greyreefshark2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=264649</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Arctic Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Pacific Ocean, and Southern Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Elasmobranchs, Global Environmental Crisis, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, shark finning, Sharks, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[More than half of known species of coral reef sharks and rays are threatened with extinction, according to new research that underscores the urgent need for improved regional fisheries and marine protected areas management. The study, published Jan. 17 in the journal Nature Communications, identified 79 of the world’s 134 coral reef-associated rays and sharks [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[More than half of known species of coral reef sharks and rays are threatened with extinction, according to new research that underscores the urgent need for improved regional fisheries and marine protected areas management. The study, published Jan. 17 in the journal Nature Communications, identified 79 of the world’s 134 coral reef-associated rays and sharks — also known as chondrichthyans — as being in one of the threatened categories on the IUCN Red List. Overfishing appears to be the biggest cause for the population decline, followed by climate change, habitat loss and degradation, residential and commercial development, and pollution, the study authors said. “There are few policies that have been put in place to manage reef sharks and rays,” lead author Samantha Sherman, a postdoctoral research fellow at Simon Fraser University in Canada, told Mongabay in an email interview. “These species are difficult to manage as they occur mainly in countries with very high coastal populations that rely on resources from the ocean for food and earning money to support their families,” she added. “These countries also tend to have large numbers of small boats and small markets spread throughout the coast, which makes implementation of any policies difficult.” A manta ray in Flores, Indonesia. Image by Herry Jeremias/Mongabay Indonesia. The authors, who according to Sherman are mostly members of the IUCN’s Shark Specialist Group, developed a Red List Index to track the progress toward international biodiversity targets over the past half century. They found 14 species fit the “critically&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/more-than-half-of-reef-sharks-and-rays-threatened-with-extinction-study-shows/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-264649</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Landmark bill will ban the shark fin trade in the US</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/landmark-bill-will-ban-the-shark-fin-trade-in-the-us/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/landmark-bill-will-ban-the-shark-fin-trade-in-the-us/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Dec 2022 19:42:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/02/06070155/1024px-Scalloped_hammerhead_at_Burgers_Zoo-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=264004</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Fish, Governance, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Law, Oceans, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The United States Senate recently passed legislation that will ban the shark fin trade, a largely unregulated industry impacting millions of sharks, within the U.S. On Dec. 15, policymakers approved the shark fin trade ban as part of an annual military defense bill, which also includes provisions to address illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The United States Senate recently passed legislation that will ban the shark fin trade, a largely unregulated industry impacting millions of sharks, within the U.S. On Dec. 15, policymakers approved the shark fin trade ban as part of an annual military defense bill, which also includes provisions to address illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The bill is awaiting President Biden’s signature for the ban to be enacted. Shark fins are mainly in demand for shark fin soup, a luxury dish popular in China, Hong Kong and many other places across Asia. While some shark fisheries harvest fins legally, many do not — it’s often the case that fishers will cut off the fins from sharks and throw the bodies back into the water while the sharks are still alive, a practice widely criticized for ecological and ethical reasons. It’s estimated that fins from as many as 73 million sharks end up in the global market yearly. Shark fin soup. Image by Wikipedia / Creative Commons. “This is a monumental and long-awaited win for shark species and marine ecosystems across the globe,” Susan Millward, executive director of the Animal Welfare Institute, said in a statement. “These remarkable apex predators have existed for hundreds of millions of years, yet the global demand for shark fins has contributed to the decimation of shark populations in just a few decades.” Before the Senate passed this legislation, 14 states and three U.S. territories had already banned the sale and possession of shark fins. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/landmark-bill-will-ban-the-shark-fin-trade-in-the-us/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/landmark-bill-will-ban-the-shark-fin-trade-in-the-us/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-264004</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Dalian Ocean Fishing, subject of Mongabay probe, now sanctioned by U.S.</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/dalian-ocean-fishing-subject-of-mongabay-probe-now-sanctioned-by-u-s/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/dalian-ocean-fishing-subject-of-mongabay-probe-now-sanctioned-by-u-s/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Dec 2022 11:17:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/12/15104553/chinese-fishing-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=263671</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Finning the High Seas and Investigation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[China and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Food Industry, Governance, Human Rights, Illegal Fishing, Industry, International Trade, Law, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Mongabay investigation, Oceans, Organized Crime, Overfishing, Politics, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Social Justice, and Wildlife consumption]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The United States has sanctioned Chinese individuals and companies allegedly involved in human rights abuses and fishing violations while operating in other countries’ or international waters. On Dec. 9, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced the sanctions targeting two individuals, Li Zhenyu and Xinrong Zhuo, and various companies, including [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The United States has sanctioned Chinese individuals and companies allegedly involved in human rights abuses and fishing violations while operating in other countries’ or international waters. On Dec. 9, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced the sanctions targeting two individuals, Li Zhenyu and Xinrong Zhuo, and various companies, including Dalian Ocean Fishing Co., Ltd. (DOF), Nasdaq-listed Pingtan Marine Enterprise, Ltd. and eight firms affiliated with Pingtan. It also identified 157 Chinese-flagged fishing vessels linked to these companies. The department reported numerous instances of abusive labor conditions and illegal fishing practices, including unlawful shark finning, on many vessels operating within the sanctioned companies&#8217; networks. Li Zhenyu (second from right), founder of DOF and its largest shareholder. “Treasury condemns the practices of those sanctioned today, which often involve the abuse of human rights, undermine fundamental labor and environmental standards, and harm the economic prospects of local populations in the Indo-Pacific,” Brian E. Nelson, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement announcing the sanctions. “These designations demonstrate how seriously we take the problem of illicit fishing and our commitment to holding the perpetrators of serious human rights abuses to account.” These sanctions follow two Mongabay-led investigations of DOF, a company that has claimed to be China’s largest supplier of sashimi-grade tuna to Japan. In September 2021, Mongabay, Tansa and the Environmental Reporting Collective revealed that migrant workers on more than a dozen of DOF’s vessels suffered abuse, including being given inadequate&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/dalian-ocean-fishing-subject-of-mongabay-probe-now-sanctioned-by-u-s/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/dalian-ocean-fishing-subject-of-mongabay-probe-now-sanctioned-by-u-s/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-263671</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Shark-fishing gear banned across much of Pacific in conservation &#8216;win&#8217;</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/shark-fishing-gear-outlawed-across-much-of-pacific-in-win-for-conservationists/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/shark-fishing-gear-outlawed-across-much-of-pacific-in-win-for-conservationists/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Dec 2022 16:37:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/12/08130037/Shark-in-shallow-water-with-remoras-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=263367</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Wildlife Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[China, Global, Japan, Pacific Ocean, Spain, Taiwan, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Food, Food Industry, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Illegal Trade, Industry, Law, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Saltwater Fish, shark finning, Sharks, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[DA NANG, Vietnam — Industrial-scale fishers will no longer be able to use two types of shark-fishing gear in the western and central Pacific Ocean after the international body in charge of tuna fisheries there agreed to ban the devices. The measure, adopted last week at the annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[DA NANG, Vietnam — Industrial-scale fishers will no longer be able to use two types of shark-fishing gear in the western and central Pacific Ocean after the international body in charge of tuna fisheries there agreed to ban the devices. The measure, adopted last week at the annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), is seen as a major and potentially precedent-setting win for conservationists who say urgent action is needed to stave off extinction for many shark populations. Shark numbers in the open ocean have plunged by an estimated 71% in the past half-century, with humans thought to kill 100 million of the animals each year. “The science was on our side,” Kelly Kryc, the head of the U.S. delegation to the WCPFC, which co-proposed the measure with Canada, said in an interview after the meeting concluded. “By taking these steps, the conservation gains are quantifiable and measurable for vulnerable shark populations like oceanic whitetip and silky sharks.” The first type of banned gear, shark lines, helps longline fishing vessels hook the ocean predators as opposed to other kinds of fish. The second type, wire leaders, increases the likelihood of retaining a shark once it’s caught on the line. The animals’ sharp teeth can easily bite through a nylon or monofilament leader (a short segment of line attaching a hook to the main fishing line) as opposed to a leader reinforced with wire. While the two devices were already outlawed in some countries’ territorial waters,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/shark-fishing-gear-outlawed-across-much-of-pacific-in-win-for-conservationists/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/shark-fishing-gear-outlawed-across-much-of-pacific-in-win-for-conservationists/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-263367</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘It was a shark operation’: Q&#038;A with Indonesian crew abused on Chinese shark-finning boat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/it-was-a-shark-operation-qa-with-indonesian-crew-abused-on-chinese-shark-finning-boat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/it-was-a-shark-operation-qa-with-indonesian-crew-abused-on-chinese-shark-finning-boat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Dec 2022 16:59:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten GokkonPhilip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/11/01155431/Rusnata-12-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=263197</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Finning the High Seas]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Atlantic Ocean, China, Global, Indonesia, Japan, Pacific Ocean, Samoa, South Korea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Organized Crime, Overfishing, Poaching, shark finning, Sharks, Tuna, Wildlife, Wildlife consumption, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In November, Mongabay revealed a massive illegal shark fishing and finning operation across the fleet of Dalian Ocean Fishing (DOF), a distant-water fishing firm that has claimed to be China’s largest supplier of sashimi-grade tuna to Japan. The investigation followed from an earlier story revealing widespread labor abuses across the same fleet. Both articles were [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In November, Mongabay revealed a massive illegal shark fishing and finning operation across the fleet of Dalian Ocean Fishing (DOF), a distant-water fishing firm that has claimed to be China’s largest supplier of sashimi-grade tuna to Japan. The investigation followed from an earlier story revealing widespread labor abuses across the same fleet. Both articles were based on dozens of interviews with Indonesian men who worked on the company’s longline boats between 2018 and 2020. One of these former deckhands, Rusnata, now 40, was born and raised in Majalengka, a district in Indonesia’s West Java province. The first time he left the area was in 2014, when he went to work on a Taiwanese longliner fishing for tuna in the Atlantic Ocean. After returning two years later, he struggled to find work on land, having only a primary school education, so he took a job on the Long Xing 607, one of around 35 boats then in DOF’s fleet. The following account has been combined from multiple interviews Mongabay conducted with Rusnata in 2021 and 2022, that have been heavily condensed and edited for clarity. Mongabay: How did you end up going back for a second stint on a fishing boat? Rusnata: I was enjoying being back on land, and I was with my wife. But slowly the money started to run out. We needed more, and there was pressure from my wife’s family. So I decided to go back to sea. When I got home the first time, my intention&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/it-was-a-shark-operation-qa-with-indonesian-crew-abused-on-chinese-shark-finning-boat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/it-was-a-shark-operation-qa-with-indonesian-crew-abused-on-chinese-shark-finning-boat/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-263197</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As shark numbers plummet, nations seek ban on devastatingly effective gear</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/as-shark-numbers-plummet-nations-seek-ban-on-devastatingly-effective-gear/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/as-shark-numbers-plummet-nations-seek-ban-on-devastatingly-effective-gear/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Nov 2022 09:48:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/11/01154352/Tommy-Trenchard-wire-leader-photo-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=262960</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[China, Global, Japan, Pacific Ocean, Spain, and Taiwan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Oceans, Overfishing, shark finning, Sharks, Tuna, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Famed undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau had a favorite shark: the oceanic whitetip, or Carcharhinus longimanus. He said they were the most dangerous of all sharks, more so than the great white (Carcharodon carcharias). Some researchers believe the species used to be one of the world’s most abundant vertebrates longer than 6 feet (1.8 meters). Today, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Famed undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau had a favorite shark: the oceanic whitetip, or Carcharhinus longimanus. He said they were the most dangerous of all sharks, more so than the great white (Carcharodon carcharias). Some researchers believe the species used to be one of the world’s most abundant vertebrates longer than 6 feet (1.8 meters). Today, however, the animal is one step away from extinction, pushed to the brink by overfishing. While sharks are often pulled up accidentally by boats hunting other fish, especially tuna, many vessels target them intentionally, hoping to harvest their fins, meat, and, sometimes, their teeth and internal organs. Such vessels often make use of special tools known as wire leaders and shark lines, whose use is minimally regulated by the multilateral bodies that govern international fishing grounds. Now, those devices may finally face a reckoning. In a bid to save the oceanic whitetip, the U.S. and Canada have asked the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), which governs tuna fisheries in those waters, to prohibit the use of wire leaders and shark lines. The WCPFC could vote on the proposal at its annual meeting, to be held next week in Da Nang, Vietnam. An oceanic whitetip shark. Image by Michael Aston/Flickr. A wire leader raises the likelihood of keeping what gets hooked on the line; a shark line increases the chance of hooking a shark in the first place. The WCPFC currently allows boats to use one or the other, but not both simultaneously. Advocates for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/as-shark-numbers-plummet-nations-seek-ban-on-devastatingly-effective-gear/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/as-shark-numbers-plummet-nations-seek-ban-on-devastatingly-effective-gear/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-262960</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New protections for sharks, songbirds, frogs and more at CITES trade summit</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/new-protections-for-sharks-songbirds-frogs-and-more-at-cites-trade-summit/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/new-protections-for-sharks-songbirds-frogs-and-more-at-cites-trade-summit/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Nov 2022 21:40:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/11/25210549/OceanImageBank_KimberlyJeffries_04-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=262955</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Panama]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Elasmobranchs, Elephants, Endangered Species, Global Environmental Crisis, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Ivory, Pet Trade, Regulations, Rhinos, Saving Species From Extinction, shark finning, Sharks, Solutions, Species, timber trade, Trade, trafficking, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Amid a global biodiversity crisis, nations have agreed to protect threatened species like sharks, songbirds, glass frogs and tropical timber by regulating their trade. Over the past two weeks, member states of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, met in Panama for its 19th meeting, CoP19, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Amid a global biodiversity crisis, nations have agreed to protect threatened species like sharks, songbirds, glass frogs and tropical timber by regulating their trade. Over the past two weeks, member states of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, met in Panama for its 19th meeting, CoP19, to discuss matters related to the protection of species. By the meeting’s end on Nov. 25, parties agreed to establish new or revised trade regulations on more than 600 animal and plant species. They also discussed ways to address the ongoing illegal trade of species like jaguars, pangolins and elephants, already protected under CITES. Experts say one of the most significant developments was the decision to protect requiem sharks, hammerhead sharks and guitarfish on CITES Appendix II, which restricts trade by requiring export permits. Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), called this decision a “victory” since these sharks account for about 95% of the global fin trade. “Finally, the vast majority of the fin trade will require some regulation that it&#8217;s legal and sustainable,” Lieberman told Mongabay. Before this decision, some sharks were previously listed on CITES, but they accounted for “a relatively small percentage of the global fin trade,” she said. Other vital decisions included protecting all 160 known species of glass frogs (family Centrolenidae), also on CITES Appendix II. Member states of CITES agreed to protect 160 known species of glass frogs (family Centrolenidae) on CITES&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/new-protections-for-sharks-songbirds-frogs-and-more-at-cites-trade-summit/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/new-protections-for-sharks-songbirds-frogs-and-more-at-cites-trade-summit/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-262955</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Exclusive: Shark finning rampant across Chinese tuna firm’s fleet</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/exclusive-shark-finning-rampant-across-chinese-tuna-firms-fleet/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/exclusive-shark-finning-rampant-across-chinese-tuna-firms-fleet/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Nov 2022 23:06:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten GokkonPhilip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/11/01175807/pCd00EiaRY6KABkToLnYnQ_thumb_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=261751</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Finning the High Seas, Illegal Wildlife Trade, and Investigation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Atlantic Ocean, China, Global, Indonesia, Pacific Ocean, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Mongabay investigation, Oceans, Organized Crime, Overfishing, Poaching, shark finning, Sharks, Tuna, Wildlife, Wildlife consumption, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When Adhi Tayuh Braka joined one of China’s largest fishing fleets in 2018, he planned to catch tuna, knuckle down and save money to get married. To pass the time, he photographed his co-workers, their equipment and the fish they pulled out of the western Pacific Ocean. Maybe he’d have some pictures to show his [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Adhi Tayuh Braka joined one of China’s largest fishing fleets in 2018, he planned to catch tuna, knuckle down and save money to get married. To pass the time, he photographed his co-workers, their equipment and the fish they pulled out of the western Pacific Ocean. Maybe he’d have some pictures to show his girlfriend back home in Indonesia, he thought. After two years on the Long Xing 801, though, Adhi wasn’t surprised when the foreman confiscated the deckhands’ phones, then scrolled through and erased many of their photos. “They were hunting shark,” Adhi, 33, told Mongabay. “They deleted the photos because they were afraid they would leak.” The vessel Adhi worked on belongs to Dalian Ocean Fishing (DOF), a partially state-owned company that has long claimed to be China’s biggest supplier of sashimi-grade tuna to Japan, a top seafood consumer. But DOF’s boats have also been the nexus of a massive illegal shark finning operation, an investigation by Mongabay has found, based on interviews with dozens of men who worked as deckhands throughout its fleet of some 35 longline vessels. Longliners practice a commercial fishing technique in which thousands of baited hooks are dragged through the sea to capture tuna and other fish. But DOF’s boats used banned gear to deliberately catch tens if not hundreds of thousands of sharks each year, including protected species such as the critically endangered oceanic whitetip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus). In 2019, DOF’s boats in the western Pacific secretly caught more shark than&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/exclusive-shark-finning-rampant-across-chinese-tuna-firms-fleet/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/exclusive-shark-finning-rampant-across-chinese-tuna-firms-fleet/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-261751</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Advocates welcome halt to shortfin mako shark fishing, call for longer ban</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/advocates-welcome-halt-to-shortfin-mako-shark-fishing-call-for-longer-ban/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/advocates-welcome-halt-to-shortfin-mako-shark-fishing-call-for-longer-ban/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Nov 2021 19:05:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/06/08194249/mako-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=249900</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Ecosystems, Elasmobranchs, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Overexploitation, Overfishing, shark finning, and Sharks]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[More than 50 countries have agreed to protect shortfin mako sharks, an endangered species that has been teetering on the brink of extinction due to fishing overexploitation. The decision has been welcomed by conservationists and scientists who have worked for years to enact a fishing ban on the species, Isurus oxyrinchus, although they say the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[More than 50 countries have agreed to protect shortfin mako sharks, an endangered species that has been teetering on the brink of extinction due to fishing overexploitation. The decision has been welcomed by conservationists and scientists who have worked for years to enact a fishing ban on the species, Isurus oxyrinchus, although they say the victory may only be temporary. The agreement, led by Canada, the U.K., Senegal and Gabon, was made this week at the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), a coalition of 52 fishing nations that focuses on the management of tunas and tuna-like species. By the meeting’s end, countries had agreed “to end overfishing immediately and to gradually achieve biomass levels sufficient to support maximum sustainable yield (MSY) by 2070,” according to a press release. A full retention ban on shortfin mako sharks in the North Atlantic — meaning fishers will not be allowed to land the sharks, even those caught accidentally — will take effect in 2022 and extend into 2023. After that, fishing nations in the North Atlantic will only be able to land mako sharks if the total mako bycatch from the previous year has not exceeded 250 metric tons. In comparison, the European Union alone landed 1,261 metric tons in 2020, according to data compiled by the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS), the ICCAT’s scientific advisory body. Shortfin mako sharks are one of the fastest creatures in the ocean, with reported speeds of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/advocates-welcome-halt-to-shortfin-mako-shark-fishing-call-for-longer-ban/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-249900</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New research hopes to shine a light on wedgefish, the ‘pangolin of the ocean’</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-research-hopes-to-shine-a-light-on-wedgefish-the-pangolin-of-the-ocean/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-research-hopes-to-shine-a-light-on-wedgefish-the-pangolin-of-the-ocean/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Sep 2021 16:52:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Caroline Chebet]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/06140309/Janneman-filming-Bowmouth-mozambique-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=246812</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, Indian Ocean, and Mozambique]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Conservation Technology, data, Elasmobranchs, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Overfishing, Rays, Remote Sensing, Research, Saltwater Fish, Science, shark finning, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[An assessment in 2019 by shark experts identified the little-known family of wedgefishes as among the most threatened marine fish families worldwide. This prompted researchers to roll out a first-of-its-kind study to track two critically endangered species in Mozambique and beyond. Scientists with the Marine Megafauna Foundation (MMF) are employing two different types of tags, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[An assessment in 2019 by shark experts identified the little-known family of wedgefishes as among the most threatened marine fish families worldwide. This prompted researchers to roll out a first-of-its-kind study to track two critically endangered species in Mozambique and beyond. Scientists with the Marine Megafauna Foundation (MMF) are employing two different types of tags, acoustic and satellite, to track the bottlenose wedgefish (Rhynchobatus australiae) and bowmouth guitarfish (Rhina ancylostoma) in a bid to better understand their movements and range in order to increase protections. “With such little information available, we truly aren’t sure what to expect,” said David Gilroy, general manager of the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary in Mozambique. Marine Megafauna Foundation co-founder Andrea Marshall tagging a wedgefish. This project is the first in Mozambique to use the combination of both acoustic and satellite tags to “ground-truth” the location of the species. Image courtesy of Marine Megafauna Foundation. Fitting the tags to specimens in the Vilanculos sanctuary and Bazaruto Archipelago National Park, researchers aim to map the two wedgefish species’ distribution sites and gather information on the threats that may have led to their steep declines. “Once we retrieve and analyze the data from the tags, we will be able to provide a better indication of the high-use zones and areas of critical habitat (e.g. nursery areas, feeding grounds) for wedgefish in and around these protected areas,” said Stephanie Venables, a senior scientist at the MMF. “This information can be used to guide the design and implementation of future&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-research-hopes-to-shine-a-light-on-wedgefish-the-pangolin-of-the-ocean/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-246812</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Efforts to tackle shark fin trade need to focus closer to shore, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/efforts-to-tackle-shark-fin-trade-need-to-focus-closer-to-shore-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/efforts-to-tackle-shark-fin-trade-need-to-focus-closer-to-shore-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Oct 2020 12:49:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/10/28122853/Palumbi_fins_seizure-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=236280</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elasmobranchs, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Global Environmental Crisis, Green, International Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, shark finning, Sharks, Trade, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A hunger for shark fin soup — a brothy, gelatinous dish that’s considered a delicacy in East Asia — is responsible for the deaths of about 73 million sharks each year. It was previously believed that many of these sharks were being caught in international waters, beyond the authority of any individual country, but a new [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A hunger for shark fin soup — a brothy, gelatinous dish that’s considered a delicacy in East Asia — is responsible for the deaths of about 73 million sharks each year. It was previously believed that many of these sharks were being caught in international waters, beyond the authority of any individual country, but a new study has upended this assumption: it found that fins were actually coming from sharks present in coastal waters, within countries’ exclusive economic zones. “It definitely gives us new information we didn&#8217;t have before … [and] repositions where the problem is occurring,” lead author Kyle Van Houtan, chief scientist at Monterey Bay Aquarium, told Mongabay. “But it also may give us some challenges that we didn&#8217;t realize we had.” Each country or jurisdiction has its own rules regarding the capture, trade and sale of shark fins. While many have outwardly banned the practice of shark finning — which involves slicing the fins off a shark, often while still alive, and then discarding the body — it can still be legal to take and sell fins from a shark that has been legally fished. And while some sharks can be legally traded across international borders, the trade of other species is either strictly regulated or prohibited. Shark fins being sorted outside a shop in Hong Kong. Image by OceansAsia. But once fins have been skinned, dried and bleached in preparation for sale, it’s difficult to distinguish which species they came from, and whether they were acquired legally or illegally.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/efforts-to-tackle-shark-fin-trade-need-to-focus-closer-to-shore-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-236280</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Shark fin trafficking ring busted as trade ban comes into effect in Florida</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/shark-fin-trafficking-ring-busted-as-trade-ban-comes-into-effect-in-florida/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/shark-fin-trafficking-ring-busted-as-trade-ban-comes-into-effect-in-florida/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Sep 2020 10:52:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Ashoka]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/09/28102836/Shark-fin-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=235223</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Global Environmental Crisis, Law Enforcement, Marine, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overconsumption, shark finning, Sharks, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[U.S. authorities say they’ve broken up a conspiracy to traffic shark fins in and out of Florida by a company based in California, where their sale and export is banned by law. In an indictment released Sept. 4 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, prosecutors allege that 12 people took [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[U.S. authorities say they’ve broken up a conspiracy to traffic shark fins in and out of Florida by a company based in California, where their sale and export is banned by law. In an indictment released Sept. 4 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, prosecutors allege that 12 people took part in a national smuggling operation that falsified documents and committed wire fraud to hide the fact that a Florida-based shark fin exporter was operating out of California. The 37-page indictment was unveiled just weeks before Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Kristin Jacobs Ocean Conservation Act, which bans shark fins harvested abroad from being imported into the state. The bill, named after a local lawmaker who died of cancer earlier this year, carves out exceptions for some licensed traders and is a result of years of contentious political wrangling between ocean conservationists and Florida’s fishing industry According to the conservation NGO WildAid, fins from as many as 73 million sharks a year wind up in pricey bowls of soup — a delicacy in East Asia that can cost hundreds of dollars per serving. Six federal law enforcement agencies were involved in building the case, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Prosecutors say the charges are a milestone in efforts to combat illegal shark fin trafficking in the U.S. “United with our partner agencies, we have shut down an operation that fed a seemingly insatiable overseas appetite&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/shark-fin-trafficking-ring-busted-as-trade-ban-comes-into-effect-in-florida/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-235223</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Landed by the thousands: Overfished Congo waters put endangered sharks at risk</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/landed-by-the-thousands-overfished-congo-waters-put-endangered-sharks-at-risk/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/landed-by-the-thousands-overfished-congo-waters-put-endangered-sharks-at-risk/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Sep 2020 08:47:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/09/21180732/banner-image-1-sh-768x449.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=235049</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, China, and Republic of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Elasmobranchs, Fish, Fishing, Illegal Fishing, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Natural Resources, Overfishing, Rays, shark finning, Sharks, trafficking, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Too many industrial fishing trawlers — mostly Chinese — along with Republic of Congo’s large artisanal fishing fleet. are threatening 42 shark and ray species; all are on the IUCN red list: Report.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Local residents and sellers barter over the latest shark catch. Image courtesy of Longshot productions / TRAFFIC. In a video clip, seven fishermen climb into a wooden “Popo” boat that’s beached on the Republic of the Congo’s sandy shoreline. They start up the motor of the 40-foot, limo-length motorized canoe and head out into the Atlantic. The men aboard the weathered craft — its blue paint chipped and faded by years of salt and sun — could be out for a week. When they reach deep waters, the fishermen lay their rope nets. In the dark, they pull them up and the cameraman captures footage of four skinny young scalloped hammerheads wriggling on deck, each perhaps as long as a man’s arm. While small-scale “artisanal” fishermen say they target adult sharks, regulation net sizes ignore the hammerhead’s singular anatomy: Their head is so wide that juveniles like these are regularly caught. With low reproduction rates, this further threatens a critically endangered species. Other footage pans over rows of dead sharks — of all species and sizes — laid out side-by-side on the beach. An open concrete-floored area is used to handle and sell sharks domestically. Image courtesy of Longshot productions / TRAFFIC. The footage is part of a recent report on the Congolese shark trade by TRAFFIC, a UK-based nonprofit that monitors the wildlife trade. Their survey found that extreme pressure is being put on sharks by about 700 Popo boats and smaller, three-person “Vili,” boats that compete with 110&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/landed-by-the-thousands-overfished-congo-waters-put-endangered-sharks-at-risk/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-235049</doi>				</item>
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