Sharkophile

The latest shark news, photos and videos

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Shark catches being underreported in smaller fisheries

A study of small-scale fisheries operating from Kenya, Zanzibar and Madagascar, has revealed the massive underreporting of sharks and rays caught annually in the region. Dominated by requiem, hammerhead, ground and hound sharks, the total annual catch of these vulnerable species equates to around 35,000 tonnes. Led by experts at Newcastle University, UK, and published in the […]

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Shark Talks: MarAlliances’ Gabriela Ochoa

In 2011, the government of Honduras declared the country’s waters a shark sanctuary. The move obliged indigenous peoples who have been catching sharks for generations and for whom the fish represent an important source of income to stop their shark fishing. Five years later, in 2016, a decree allowed for a modification to the law stipulating that sharks caught […]

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IUCN lists 17 shark species as threatened with extinction

The shortfin mako, the world’s fastest known shark, which can reach speeds of up to 43 miles an hour, is one step closer to extinction. According to the Shark Specialist Group (SSG) of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), which assessed the population trends of 58 species of sharks and rays and updated their […]

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Report: Shark Bay World Heritage site at catastrophic risk

  The devastating bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017 rightly captured the world’s attention. But what’s less widely known is that another World Heritage-listed marine ecosystem in Australia, Shark Bay, was also recently devastated by extreme temperatures, when a brutal marine heatwave struck off Western Australia in 2011. A 2018 workshop […]

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Study finds endangered sharks may be on U.K. menus

Threatened species of sharks are being sold under generic terms in fish-and-chip shops and at fishmongers in the U.K., a new study has found. For consumers, shark products and species can be hard to identify: any distinguishing features are usually removed before shark steaks are sold; shark meat is battered and fried in traditional fish […]

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Proposed law would protect Hawaii’s sharks, rays

Chair of the Senate Agriculture and Environment Committee Mike Gabbard  and Representative Nicole Lowen, Chair of the House Environmental Protection and Energy Committee, have introduced proposed legislation that would offer greater protections to Hawaii’s sharks and rays. Under the proposal, it would be a misdemeanor “to knowingly capture, take, possess, abuse, or entangle any shark […]

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Shark fin legislation re-introduced in Congress

After time ran out for a proposed ban on the trade of shark fins during the last session of Congress, Reps. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (I-MP) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) re-introduced the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act for this year’s 116th congressional session. Like it’s predecessor, the proposed legislation would ban the buying and selling of shark […]

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Shark Talk: OCEARCH’s Chris Fischer

Last week,  satellite tracking data revealed that the waters near the Atlantic continental shelf off the shores of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the east coast of Florida are a winter hot spot for large great white sharks. Such a discovery may not have been possible without OCEARCH founder Chris Fischer. OCEARCH, along with […]