Sharkless Seas?

by Peter Vine

Pictures by J. Stafford-Deitsch

Are we

witnessing a gradual process leading inexorably to the total demise of

sharks on Arabian coral reefs? Throughout the world sharks are under such

intense attack by Man that their numbers have declined to the point where

certain species are now threatened with extinction. The situation in the

Red Sea is also critical and some areas that were until recently renowned

for their richly productive reefs, replete with fish of all sizes, including

sharks, have been transformed into desolate habitats where both the coral-reef

fish and their primitive predators have been wiped out. Meanwhile the general

public is still being fed the misleading old line that the seas are full

of man-eating sharks and we must protect ourselves at all costs from them.

Isn’t it time that sharks received a better press and that we turned our

attentions to saving both them and their rich underwater habitats rather

than continuing the slaughter?

This article examines the question and looks at

some pertinent facts concerning the issue.

There

is a place that I could take you to in Arabia that was regarded, twenty

years ago, as one of the most beautiful wildlife habitats on our planet.

It was featured in National Geographic magazine; those who went there were

stunned by both its natural beauty and the great variety of its wildlife.

Not only did it possess physical grandeur, but it was alive with movement,

colour and the vibrant feeling of an ecosystem in the peak of its condition.

It was also a place where you could see some of the most impressive large

predators on Earth. The legend that was created around this most magnificent

place lives on but the reality has changed dramatically and devastatingly.

Whilst the physical form remains, much of the life and virtually all the

atmosphere has been destroyed. The colourful living carpet has turned a

monotonous shade of grey; the shimmering movements of darting exotically

coloured animals have been reduced to a mere fragment of its former grandeur

and the excitement of witnessing some of the world’s most graceful large

animals is no longer to be had here. As if this was not enough, the debris

of our human race is scattered over the seabed as if it was a large refuse

disposal area rather than a site of world importance for wildlife. The

remarkable thing about all this is that it has happened with hardly a murmur

of protest and, despite the terrible destruction that has been wrought

there, it is still a major tourism attraction. Indeed, I would go further

than that; not only is it still a commercial attraction, but it is one

where visitors are still awed by its physical beauty and by what remains

of its wildlife. The great sadness that the place evokes is with those

of us who saw it in its true magnificence and for whom the memory is an

indelible reminder of what it should look like today; and of the alarming

rate at which we are destroying the very things that we find most beautiful.

The place? Ras Muhammed, on the southern tip of

the Sinai Peninsula. The impressive predator? Grey reef, hammerhead, silver-tip

and other sharks. The destroyer? Man. The means of destruction? Fishing,

pollution and a mushrooming tourism diving industry. The reason for silence?

The underwater world is still a mystery for many government administrators

and most of the general public. What happens beneath the sea’s surface

is out of our everyday gaze and therefore not brought to our constant attention

(‘out of sight, out of mind’). Films, magazine articles and books have

continued to glorify the great richness of areas like the Red Sea, fearing

to diminish the impressions of excitement and even danger that are implicit

in their dramatic presentations. Conservation priorities have tended to

focus on terrestrial rather than marine habitats, both in Arabia and throughout

the world. And finally perhaps, we have demonised the shark to such an

extent that neither the general public nor most government administrators

would be likely to place shark conservation high on their agendas.

There are over forty different species of sharks

found in Arabian waters and until quite recently certain reefs in the Red

Sea were regarded as some of the most reliable places for photographing

or filming sharks in their natural setting. Unfortunately however the few

efforts that have been made to conserve sharks have so far been largely

ineffective and in consequence their numbers are in decline almost everywhere.

One reason for the rapid drop in shark numbers is to be found in the biology

of the animal itself which has a slow reproductive rate. Whilst most bony

fish have reproductive systems in which many thousands of eggs are produced

and have the potential to quite rapidly recover from population crashes,

a female shark only produces a few offspring and there is quite a long

gestation period (from 8 to 18 months in most cases). Added to this slow

reproduction is a fairly slow growth rate with many species taking as long

as twelve years to reach maturity. Thus sharks do not have the innate ability

to replenish their numbers quickly, following intense fishing of a particular

area. An additional problem for many Red Sea sharks is the fact that species

like the grey-reef shark live for long periods of time on a single reef.

Indeed, divers who have taken to shark-watching with as much passion as

their land-bound colleagues watch birds, have learned to recognise individual

sharks which they have observed feeding at the same sites year after year.

Whilst the demise of sharks at Ras Muhammed is

due to a combination of factors, i.e. fishing, pollution, habitat destruction

and disturbance by divers, each of these factors can operate in their own

right as the major triggering factor for a shark population crash. There

is no doubt however that the single most important reason why sharks are

disappearing from Arabia’s coastal waters is that they are being fished

with new levels of intensity and efficiency. There are two main reasons

for this: firstly, increased fishing of all stocks has reached a widespread

state of over-exploitation, i.e. the level of harvesting is greater than

that which can be sustained on an annual basis and therefore stocks are

declining, forcing fishermen to spend more and more effort to catch the

same or less fish. This has placed pressure on fishermen to catch what

were previously regarded as marginal or even undesirable species. The second

major reason is that a number of major shark fisheries, elsewhere in the

world, have already been almost, or completely, fished-out whereas the

Asian market for shark-fin has grown. The result is that prices have risen

and new shark fisheries have been developed or existing ones expanded,

in order to try to keep up with the demand.

The shark fin industry is a huge one. It was estimated

that 100 million sharks were killed in 1989 and it is believed that this

figure was significantly exceeded during the early 90’s. As the Florida

shark fishery collapsed prices for fins rose dramatically from $12 per

kilogram (wet weight) in December 1990 to over $24 in 1992. Since then

prices have risen further and fishermen based at several fishing centres

around the Arabian peninsula have understandably cashed in on the demand

by actively targeting sharks. The report of Yemeni fishing boats in the

western Red Sea with their boats loaded to the gunwales with shark fins

(see page 42) is just one more indication of this trend. The fact that

divers and film-makers may have to go elsewhere to enjoy the sharks which

have for so long been a major feature of reefs in the central Red Sea will

impact upon previously sustainable local economies, probably to a greater

extent than the short term benefits of the relatively small income that

will be made from selling the fins. The fact that this is also a cruel

method of fishing in which the fins are often cut off the live shark which

is then returned to the sea to die a lingering death, is probably of little

concern to most people involved in the business, nor indeed to a large

section of the general public. As one who has seen these animals in the

dignity and splendour of their natural settings, I have to say that this

facet of their slaughter simply adds to the general dismay with which we

observe what is happening.

If we are going to start caring about sharks and

their marine habitats in the same way that we have begun to focus upon

terrestrial creatures like the Arabian leopard, then we must also improve

our understanding of them. One of the first aspects of this is to try to

break down the myth that sharks constitute a major danger to Man. One aspect

of the shark’s general decline, world-wide, is of course that whatever

threat they may have been in the past is greatly diminished as their numbers

dwindle. Apart from this however, sharks never were the terrible ogres

that they have been held up to be. There are many different ways to explain

this; one is that the world-wide death toll on humans from shark attacks

is somewhere between ten and twenty five people per year compared to a

world-wide death toll on sharks from humans at around 100 million! Furthermore,

most shark attacks can be explained by behavioural considerations such

as swimmers entering seal swimming areas which are known shark feeding

grounds. The annual death toll from shark attacks in Arabia is, in most

years, zero. Ask any experienced diver who has dived in the Red Sea; when

he or she sees a shark it is a moment for celebration and, if they are

so equipped, taking its picture, rather than fleeing in fear. If such divers

are truthful very few of them will claim to have ever been directly threatened

by a shark, and those that have will have extricated themselves from the

shark’s territory without use of any spear-gun or other weapon. Most such

divers will also explain that sharks are more afraid of divers than the

divers are of the sharks. Finally, they will tell you that the only time

when they are afraid of sharks is when there are spear fishermen in the

water. The spear fishermen claim they need the spears for protection but

experienced divers know very well that spearing fish attracts sharks, excites

them and can, on some occasions lead to a confused shark attacking a diver

in the mistaken impression that he or she is the injured fish. An effective

and properly policed ban on spear guns has long been recognised to be a

good first step towards marine conservation in all coral-reef areas and

indeed in more temperate waters.

The presence of sharks on a coral-reef is generally

an indication of the overall health of the ecosystem they occupy. They

are at the peak of the pyramid of life whose base is the sea-weeds, sea-grasses

and symbiotic zooxanthellae within the reef-building corals. Their absence

is generally a signal that all is not well. Let us hope that we can recognise

the value of these wonderful animals before we destroy them for ever. It

is, I feel, time that concerted action was taken to protect both the habitats

and unique species of Arabian waters. As part of this effort shark conservation

will need special attention.