The Status and Management of Sharks in the United States

Commercial fisheries are one of the greatest threats to sharks inhabiting the waters around the United States.  Fisheries kill sharks as the target species or as bycatch when other fish species are targeted.  The United States, despite decades of fisheries management, has not been able to develop sustainable shark fisheries.    

The Status of U.S. Sharks
Several recent studies have shown that shark populations in U.S. waters are in trouble.

  • In the past 8-15 years, all recorded shark species in the Northwest Atlantic, with the exception of makos, have declined over 50%, with scalloped hammerhead, white, and thresher shark populations declining more than 75%.
  • Abundances of all large predatory sharks along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. have fallen over the past 35 years to the point that scientists now consider them "functionally eliminated," meaning that they can no longer perform their role in the ecosystem as top predators.
  • Some shark species along the U.S. Atlantic coast, including bull, dusky, and smooth hammerhead sharks have declined 99% or more in the past 35 years.
  • A recent assessment of dusky sharks showed that the population in the U.S. Atlantic Ocean was in such poor shape that even if all fishing related mortality ended today, it would take 100-400 years for the population to recover.

U.S. Shark Management    
In 2000, the United States passed the Shark Finning Prohibition Act to eliminate the practice of shark finning in U.S. waters.  While this law allows the fins to be removed from the sharks on the boat, it requires both the fins and carcass to be aboard the vessel at the time of landing in a 5% ratio of fins to carcass weight.  In practice this system is hard to enforce and makes species identification extremely difficult. In addition, the fact that the U.S. does not have species specific landings data, stock assessments or quotas, makes it impossible to prevent overfishing of shark populations. The U.S. needs to implement stronger protection for sharks.   

What needs to be done:   

  1. Require sharks to be landed whole with the fins still attached to the bodies.  This practice will facilitate enforcement and allow for better data collection for use in stock assessments and quota monitoring, since species will be easily identified.
  2. Collect species specific landings data, conduct stock assessments for each species and allocate allowable catch at a precautionary level based on the assessment results.
  3. Ban the import of shark fins from countries that do not have shark finning requirements consistent with those in the United States.