Study: Big sharks disappearing from Gulf

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Study: Big sharks disappearing from Gulf

Monday, 20 July 2009 21:07

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A scientific study of Press-Register clippings from the rodeo seems to indicate a decline in the size of Gulf sharks. Press-Register file photo Fodrie, formerly with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and now at the University of North Carolina, was among a group of scientists who studied Press-Register clippings dating back to the 1920s as part of an effort to analyze the health of fish populations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Essentially, large sharks have been "eliminated" from the Gulf, according to the scientists. Such sharks were the Gulf's top predators until about 1988, when rodeo records indicate that they abruptly vanished.

The scientists blame the federal government.

Powers said that the government provided loans and other incentives to encourage commercial fishermen to angle for the big sharks.

Those fishermen, outfitted with longline gear paid for with federal funds, proved adept. Longlines -- consisting of a main line five or more miles long festooned with thousands of hooks -- are among the most efficient of all commercial fishing methods.

"That's why the population decreased so suddenly for these big sharks," Powers said. "You can see the harvest ramp up in the '80s, then ramp down since then."

In the early 1970s, before the government promoted shark fishing on a grand scale, all commercial fishermen in the Gulf brought in less than 200,000 pounds per year.

By 1986, the commercial haul was around 2 million pounds, and by 1989 more than 12 million pounds.

Then it crashed, falling year after year. In 2007, the most recent data is available, the total harvest was around 2 million pounds.

The bulk of the harvest today consists of small shark species, such as blacktips and sandbar sharks, neither of which grow much larger than 100 pounds.

The giant sharks of yesteryear, including tiger sharks and bulls, each of which routinely reached 800-plus pounds, are now "functionally extinct from the Gulf of Mexico," according to Powers.

(From blog.al.com, by Ben Raines)