Push to protect all sharks in SA seas

Group sets sights on other species

1 May 2010, Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition) By Helen Bamford

 A MARINE conservation group is pushing for protection for other species of sharks besides great whites, saying most sharks are worth more alive than dead.
Lesley Rochat, director of the AfriOceans Conservation Alliance, said more than 6 000 people had signed a petition, including scientists and researchers from around the world.
She said many international tourists came to South Africa to see species that had been wiped out elsewhere.
“The eco-tourist industry brings in millions of rands of revenue, and provides job opportunities in a country with a high unemployment rate.”
South Africa was the first country in the world to fully protect great white sharks in 1991, but they are still poached and caught in shark nets.
Rochat said South Africa needed to stay at the forefront of shark conservation to be taken seriously as an ecotourist destination.
Other popular sharks that people wanted to see on ecotourist trips were ragged tooth, bull, blacktip, bronze whalers, hammerhead, tiger, whale and cow sharks, she said.
In the petition, Rochat says one ragged tooth shark is estimated to be worth R50 000 a year and can live for 40 years or more. “In its lifetime it is therefore worth about R2.250 million. This same shark if slaughtered will fetch only R1 000 once-off. Shark meat, depending on size and species, is worth only between R3 and R18/kg.”
Rochat adds that tiger shark diving at Aliwal Shoal generated an estimated R18m in 2007, while great white shark cage diving in Gansbaai alone generates about R289m a year.
Of the more than 200 different species of sharks found in South African waters, only great white sharks, whale sharks and basking sharks were fully protected. All other species may be legally caught and killed.
This week in Hawaii the state legislature passed a bill banning shark fins from being harvested. About 89 million sharks are killed for their fins globally each year.

To find out more about the petition go to: http://www.aoca.org.za/petition.php