Endangered sharks are being killed at alarming ranges within the Pacific and industrial fishing is placing marine biodiversity at growing danger, Greenpeace has claimed, after its activists disrupted a Spanish vessel working north of New Zealand.
The marketing campaign group stated activists on the Rainbow Warrior this week noticed a longline fishing operation by the Playa Zahara within the South Fiji Basin.
Georgia Whitaker, a senior campaigner with Greenpeace Australia Pacific, was on board throughout the operation. She claimed the activists watched because the vessel hauled in and killed three endangered mako sharks in half an hour.
She stated a small crew, together with a skilled shark handler, boarded a help boat to method the Spanish vessel and launched 14 animals caught on its line – amongst them eight near-threatened blue sharks, 4 swordfish and an endangered longfin mako shark.
The activists additionally eliminated greater than 210 hooks and 20km of longline.
“It was devastating seeing these beautiful creatures being caught, often on their gills, in their mouth, by huge baited hooks,” Whitaker stated. “They were fighting for their lives and then minutes later you’d see blood spilling over the side of the boat.”
Whitaker stated the vessel’s crew informed Greenpeace they had been performing legally and primarily concentrating on swordfish.
Based on the European Union’s reporting to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Fee (WCPFC), the Playa Zahara caught greater than 600,000kg of blue shark in 2023 within the Pacific Southwest.
Patricia Rodríguez, a spokesperson for Viverdreams Fish, the corporate that owns Playa Zahara, stated in a press release the boat acted in accordance with worldwide regulation and capturing species such because the mako shark and blue shark was not prohibited.
“The species mentioned by Greenpeace are within the quotas and limits allowed by the competent authorities, and the capture, handling and unloading procedures are controlled and documented, by all the systems established by the EU and Spanish authorities,” Rodríguez stated.
The assertion accused Greenpeace of “a campaign of disinformation”, violating maritime legal guidelines, stealing the fishing gear and posing dangers to crews on each vessels by its intervention.
“Our company is strongly committed to the sustainability of marine resources and regularly collaborates with scientists, independent observers and fisheries authorities to ensure compliance with conservation standards,” she stated.
A Greenpeace evaluation has estimated that just about half 1,000,000 blue sharks had been caught as bycatch within the Pacific Ocean final 12 months – the best quantity recorded since 1991.
The identical report discovered practically 70% of EU longline catches within the area in 2023 had been blue sharks.
World leaders will meet in Good subsequent week for the UN ocean convention to debate the excessive seas biodiversity treaty, which Australia signed in 2023 however is but to ratify.
Greenpeace has urged the federal government to ratify the treaty inside the first 100 days of its second time period. The treaty requires 60 nations to ratify it earlier than it comes into drive, however as but solely 32 have accomplished so.
Shark fishing is a profitable international commerce, value an estimated $1bn yearly. World demand for shark meat has doubled previously 20 years.
Dr Leonardo Guida, a shark scientist with the Australian Marine Conservation Society, stated the extent of exploitation was alarming, given greater than one-third of shark and ray species are threatened with extinction globally.
“Sharks are important in the ecosystem, they typically occupy the top of marine food webs,” he stated. “Steep population declines will cause food webs to potentially become unstable and ultimately collapse, there is a clear impact their loss could have on food security for a lot of nations.”
Guida stated the creation of no-take marine sanctuaries was important – to protect marine life and to know how ecosystems reply to the mixed pressures of overfishing and the local weather disaster.
“These sanctuaries act as controls,” he stated. “They help us compare areas impacted by fishing with those that are not, which is critical to building resilience in ocean wildlife and managing our fisheries in a rapidly changing world, such that we reduce our impact on different species.”
