June 06, 2015 — I am Rusty Hudson, a shark specialist and reasons provided below show the reality about the United States (US) federal shark fishing management. My personal US Atlantic shark fishing history exists since the 1960’s, while my Florida ancestors were watermen and date back generations on this Atlantic coast. The facts show why US shark attacks have increased.
During the late 1970’s the US federal government began a preliminary shark fishery management plan (FMP) by the US Department of Commerce (DOC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), through the agency called the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) that promoted ideas encouraging fishermen to use under-utilized marine species, (i.e. sharks), for food. The US commercial fishing interests followed the US government’s advice during the 1980’s to catch, land sharks and develop seafood marketing, domestically and internationally. The public demand for sharks increased in the US at this stage, but the NMFS failed to monitor the commercial coastal shark landings averaging up to fifteen millions pounds in the US exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
In the last part of the 1980’s, China, during Deng Xiaoping’s reformation period the economic growth saw an increased demand from their new affluent populations for shark fin soup, one of eight traditional Chinese culinary treasures. Shark’s fin values, and shark harvests worldwide began to increase significantly into the 1990’s due to the publicity. Shark fishing began to be negatively publicized in the news, on television with science style documentaries, and with anti- shark fishing media campaigns by environmental non-governmental organizations seeking membership funding.
About 1989 the US DOC NOAA NMFS staff began an effort to develop an Atlantic Shark FMP involving the US exclusive economic zone (EEZ) area from Maine to Texas, and included the Caribbean Sea region around the US Territories of Puerto Rico, St. Croix and the US Virgin Islands. On April 26, 1993 the Atlantic Shark FMP final rule was published and the NMFS Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Management Division closed US Atlantic shark fishing on May 15, 1993.
Around the early 1990’s some scientists influenced the state of Florida to consider a mercury warning about eating shark meat. Overnight, nationwide the sale of shark meat fell dramatically, (same as a similar mercury media scare over swordfish consumption during the 1970’s). After much media hype, the state of Florida and other states established mercury advisories to pregnant women, yet the damage was significant for the US fish markets as shark sales fell by over half. Then the Atlantic Shark FMP became effective causing even more reductions in shark landings.
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