TO HOLD ON TO THAT FEELING OF EXCITEMENT OF HAVING dived with a great white shark, I took one final trip, this time to the Bahamas, where I connected with an operation that offered cage-free dives. My hope was to finally swim in the open water with the elusive, or at least elusive-to-me, tiger shark. Prepared with a row of scuba tanks secured to its inside rail, the chartered boat headed out into the turquoise waters of the western Atlantic. After suiting up, I stood at the edge of the boat, peering once again into the blue depths below, finally ready to swim freely with the sharks.
Plunging feet-first into the water, I couldn’t see anything because the bubbles from my oxygen tank obscured my vision. Eventually, the water cleared, and I stared down to the flat bottom, approximately 40 feet below my flippers. A shark was swimming along the seafloor. To get a better look, I headed down the anchor line with the excursion’s dive master, my chain mail–adorned squire, who was carrying a cylinder filled with fish. The fish were for the sharks; the chain mail was for him, protection against an overzealous shark. I, on the other hand, was clad only in a wetsuit, completely exposed. Caribbean reef sharks swarmed around us, their snow-white underbellies suspended in the blue around us like clouds in the sky. Floating forms slowly took shape: bow-shaped mouths, broad noses, ocher eyes, pupils slit up and down like a cat’s. Interested only in the dive master’s fish, the sharks circled around him, lining up for their morning meal. The dive master skewered his spear with a fish and held it aloft. A reef shark snapped it up. More sharks quickly emerged out of the reef to join the party. A gray reef shark was coming right at me. The shark glided over my head, its tail swishing from side to side. I reached out and, ever so slightly, touched it. I know I shouldn’t have, but I had to. The instinct was the same as wanting to pet a dog or cat or any beautiful animal, wild or domestic. Little did I know I was about to get all I could handle.
Grabbing another fish from his cylinder, the dive master fashioned it to his spear, then raised it about a foot in front of my face, not nearly enough room between me and the skewered bait for the shark to pass through without coming unnervingly close to my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a reef shark charging. There was nothing that I could have done but remain motionless. The shark came in, considered me and the fish, and then chomped down on the bait, the right choice as far as I was concerned. As the shark raced by, the fish secure in its wide mouth, its pectoral fin grazed my cheek, and I felt the shark’s smooth skin. (Shark skin is only rough against the grain; it’s smooth going the other direction.) Sharks are covered with a slight film that protects them from bacteria and parasites, and this gelatinous residue marked my face like a calling card. I finally got my wish for a connection, literally.
I finished my dive and headed back to the boat, exhilarated. I tossed my fins and mask back on deck, and the dive master pulled me aboard. At no time was I in any danger. Instead, I was astounded by the sharks’ remarkable beauty and the experience of being surrounded by so many of them. Although once again I failed to spot a single tiger shark, I no longer cared. The moment was thrilling, and sometimes it’s best to leave a little mystery so we can appreciate all that remains to be discovered, especially in nature. Someday, perhaps, I will get to meet a tiger shark. I just hope it’s not too late.
SHARKS ARE FACING A CATACLYSM OVER THE NEXT FEW DECADES if current trends continue. The international rescue mission currently underway—from Greg Skomal at the Massachusetts Shark Research Program to Lesley Rochat and her creative conservation efforts in South Africa—is about more than saving a specific species of shark. Explicitly stated or not, the ultimate goal is to protect every species, including humans. Combined, the efforts of scientists, conservationists, and environmental activists aim to safeguard the health of the ocean and the health of the planet, while simultaneously respecting and preserving the interconnectedness of every living species, of every living environment.
Over the planet’s 4-billion–year history, this interconnection shaped a delicate balance of animals. In every ecosystem, apex predators maintain that balance crucial to the pyramid of life. If apex predators are harmed, trophic cascades reverberate throughout the system. The national parks do better when wolves are in abundance. The same is true for the oceans, where sharks maintain the health of the ecosystems. They patrol the high seas, keep the oceans clean, and watch over the coral reefs. Without sharks, the marine pyramid will crumble and wreak unforeseen consequences. Because sharks keep the oceans healthy, if we disrespect them, we disrespect the oceans. If we disrespect the oceans, we risk destroying the planet’s primary source of life, laying waste to our own future as a species. Respect for life is the foundation for protecting the most important things in life. And that respect begins at the top of the marine food chain with sharks, the bellwether species for the health of the oceans and the working conditions of the fishermen who rely on the oceans for their livelihood and food.
I shared with Greg Skomal my concern that we’re staring down a future in which entire regions of the world’s oceans are bereft of sharks. “That’s right,” he said. “They’ve been fished out in many places. There could be remote atolls that don’t have sharks anymore. The high-seas fleets that are targeting these sharks—I should add, illegally for fins—can move in and wipe the sharks out very quickly. And there’s no one out there to enforce anything. And once the sharks are gone, they’re gone forever.”
To avoid this catastrophe, our mind-set needs to change.
Reasoning with people can help, but it has its limitations. The author Arthur Koestler argues, convincingly, that the voice of reason is up against an intractable foe. In The Ghost in the Machine, he writes:
All efforts of persuasion by reasoned argument rely on the implicit assumption that homo sapiens, though occasionally blinded by emotion, is a basically rational animal, aware of the motives of his own actions and beliefs—an assumption which is untenable in the light of both historical and neurological evidence.1
To overcome this, Koestler says that we, all over the world, would need to experience a spontaneous, radical change in our consciousness. The twin undertakings of protecting the environment and saving sharks require such a change. Consciousness is not a set of opinions, information, or values but a total configuration in an individual that makes up his or her whole perception of reality or worldview. Included within the idea of consciousness is a person’s education, politics, and values. But consciousness is much more than that, more, too, than their sum. It is that by which people create their own lives and thus the society in which they live. When civilization changes, the existing consciousness is likely to be in substantial accord with underlying material realities. However, when change is rapid, consciousness can lag increasingly behind reality, inadvertently or by willful ignorance. Over the past fifty years, we’ve experienced an accelerated rate of change that confounds our comprehension of it. As a result, we’ve seemingly lost our ability to recognize reality.
Up until recently, humans viewed the oceans—and their many resources—as infinite, indefinitely exploitable. Because the bounty of the ocean was inexhaustible, we could take fish at will. Sharks, once viewed as nuisance fish that got in the way of valuable commercial species, have been killed in unspeakable numbers. This worldwide slaughter was excusable because sharks have been considered dangerous man-eaters, underwater monsters to be feared and eliminated. Killing them for sport was as acceptable as was killing other apex predators like lions and wolves. Another commonly held belief was that jobs and money should always trump nature and conservation. Creating jobs and generating revenue justified damaging the environment irreparably.
And where has this historical consciousness led us? Society is slowly strangling the oceans by overfishing, dumping waste into the seas, discarding tons of plastic that span hundreds of miles in the ocean, and hurling mercury into the atmosphere that turns seawater into poison. Slowly, the oceans are losing the great apex predators: sharks, tuna, swordfish, and other fish that have lived in the oceans for millions of years, literally eons before humans arrived on the scene. The unfortunate new reality is that the oceans do not hold an infinite supply of fish to exploit. Because our actions are literally destroying the ocean environment, the old consciousness is therefore no longer appropriate.
The new consciousness wants to combine resources, capital, and time to maximize efficiency; there is no option that requires despoiling the environment so that people can pursue their livelihood. No inherent conflict exists between conservation and capitalism. Society can use reason and science to develop ways to produce goods and services without degrading the environment, which is now crucial for humankind. A rational approach is no more evident when managing renewable and nonrenewable resources. Gold, for example, is a nonrenewable resource. If you have a gold mine, you want to extract the gold as quickly as possible. The current approach to fishing sometimes treats commercial fishing as if it were a nonrenewable resource, which endangers the fishing industry and jobs. When fish are viewed as renewable resources, and managed as such, consumption of fish stocks can continue indefinitely.
The catastrophe of the cod bears witness to what happens when renewable resources are not properly managed. In fact, the best way to make sure there are enough jobs for people in fisheries around the world is to make sure conservation succeeds, just as Tamzyn Zweig at the South African Shark Conservancy argues. This mind-set is what society needs, not antiquated beliefs supported only by shopworn arguments.
The new ecological consciousness has tremendous political implications. It recognizes that the welfare of the community and the world needs to be considered, and we must all work together to help create a better place to live.
Many Asian countries are still holding on to the old consciousness, which is why this transformation will take time. However, some countries have demonstrated that a change in perception can take place. As already discussed, Palau and the Maldives have created shark sanctuaries in their economic zones where commercial shark fishing is prohibited. Honduras also implemented a shark-fishing moratorium. After conservationists petitioned the Indonesian government to create a shark sanctuary near the island of Raja Ampat in western Papua, the Indonesian government passed legislation to create a 15,000-square-mile shark reserve. And in Fiji, conservationists are working to get better protection for sharks through wide-reaching media and education campaigns. These actions provide reasons to be optimistic that some nations recognize that the time has come to change course.
To be sure, changing the popular perceptions of sharks will be hard. Some nations will always view the species as an exploitable and expendable resource, and some individuals will always view killing apex predators as entertainment. While it is important to recognize that changing views is a great challenge, views nevertheless do change, more often than not by the sons and daughters of the future. There is still hope for sharks; the next generation offers it. The new generation coming of age wants to protect the environment, not exploit it. These emerging voices want laws to protect the planet for the future. They recognize that there is more to the world than the antiquated morals and ideas of previous generations. Millions of young people today are realizing that subtle harmonies and interrelationships exist among the species, and they have an underlying appreciation for the interconnectedness of life. In this new consciousness, humans are not here to exploit the environment. The relationship between people and nature is no longer antagonistic; it’s synergistic.
In Florida, marine biologist and shark conservationist Jillian Morris is helping to educate and train the next generation of shark advocates through her Sharks4Kids program, which she launched in 2013. Through educational programs, field trips, and underwater adventures, she hopes to empower and inspire young people to appreciate sharks.
The sunny Morris, who resides in Florida with her husband, the underwater photographer Duncan Brake, designed an interactive, online curriculum for students and teachers to access, regardless of where they reside. She believes that children should use their voices. “We want to give them tools—both academically and out in the field—to encourage them, and for them to appreciate how amazing these animals are. No matter how young or old someone is, they can make a difference every single day.” To date, the Sharks4Kids program has connected with almost 50,000 students in forty-seven different states and thirty-seven different countries, according to Morris.
In addition to the ocean- and shark-heavy curriculum, another key component of Sharks4Kids is collaboration. “We’re big believers in the importance of science,” Morris explained, “and we want kids to be exposed to all different elements, whether it’s laboratory work or out in the field.”
In Bimini, Sharks4Kids students regularly venture out into the mangroves, accompanied by certified program administrators, to interact with juvenile sharks up close. As part of the trip, students also visit the shark lab and facilities to learn more about the work that goes on there. In the Florida Keys, Sharks4Kids administers tagging programs with Seacamp, a program founded by Jeffrey Carrier, one of the world’s foremost experts on sharks. As its name implies, Seacamp invites children to spend several weeks at various times of the year learning about the oceans and sharks in the Keys. Evenly split between girls and boys, groups of students work with Carrier to gain a general introduction to sharks and the threats that they’re facing. Then each student gets a chance to perform a workup with a nurse shark. Over two days, they go out and catch and tag sharks as part of an ongoing survey. “Education is crucial in saving not only sharks, but the oceans in general,” Morris said. “As adults, we get set in our ways, but younger generations haven’t been inundated with the media. They haven’t all seen Jaws.”
I asked Carrier if girls were unnerved by working with sharks. As soon as I asked the question, I knew the answer. “I don’t think that the young women are at all scared off by sharks,” said Carrier. “I think they bring the same attitudes as a young man would—that is, one of questioning. They haven’t had any experience with the animals before, so they might be a little nervous to begin with. But the people who are participating with us in this program are successful women scientists. We have two classroom teachers from Monroe County schools who have a background in marine science and who have worked in marine science. Not just studied it, but they are marine scientists. We have our boat captains, our women boat captains. Other people who work with us in the program are successful women scientists, and I think that having role models that they can pattern their interests after is important.
“So,” Carrier continued, “I think that there’s just a little trepidation to begin with and maybe the fear of the unknown, but that goes away the first time they touch a shark. It’s all of a sudden something very interesting to them when they learn they can handle the animal.” At the end of the day, when the students realize that “they haven’t been harmed, and they haven’t harmed the animal,” Carrier said, “we’ve got an attitude adjustment that’s occurred.”
Carrier told me that through new deep-sea DNA sampling technologies he and his teams are continuing to identify new shark species. “Common names get in the way sometimes,” he said. “The bull, the cub, the ground, the Lake Nicaragua shark, and the Zambezi River shark all turn out to be the same species. And fortunately, modern genetics is allowing us to do the forensic work that can tell us a little bit more about that.”
Despite the species’ increased vulnerability, the total number of shark species now exceeds five hundred, a number that will continue to grow as sampling technologies improve. New species are usually found in deep water and possess extraordinary adaptation skills. For instance, scientists discovered the pocket shark in 1979, less than forty years ago. A team found a female specimen—the first of only two specimens taken so far—off the coast of northern Chile, 1,000 feet below the surface. The pocket shark is identified by two pockets next to its front fins, the purpose of which remains unknown. The pockets themselves, measuring about 4 percent of the shark’s body length, are large, considering the shark’s total body length of only 5 inches. Some researchers hypothesize that these pockets may secrete a kind of glowing fluid or pheromones. A more recent discovery in 2018 was a deep-sea shark named “Genie’s dogfish” after the shark research pioneer Eugenie Clark. The shark lives in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic Ocean. Its blue-green eyes are large enough to see in great depths, but the shark itself only grows to 28 inches in length. As ocean exploration continues, scientists will likely discover new shark species, but that doesn’t necessarily increase the species’ chances of survival.
I asked Carrier about the outlook for sharks, and he summed it up well: “One hundred million sharks are taken a year, and it’s impossible to minimize the damage from that number of animals taken. There are still countries in the world that illegally fish for sharks and condone finning of sharks. The problem, of course, is that we’re dealing with generally migratory species. They don’t respect country boundaries, and the laws from country to country vary. And until we get together and have an international organization that can establish laws that are adhered to by fishing nations, I worry for our stocks down the road. I think that when you’re dealing with any migratory species, whether it’s a bony fish, shark, or bird, we must get an international agreement on management. . . . If such an international agreement is absent, I think these species don’t stand a chance.”
Carrier believes Americans should take the lead on the issue. “Mankind should go one step beyond that,” he added. “Americans are the fortunate few in the world that can have an impact on other countries and their cultures,” he said. “Every day, . . . what Americans buy, and what Americans talk about, has an impact around the world. And Americans should use that power to make sure that products they buy don’t use slave labor, and that the environment is not destroyed to fill our plate. While Americans can look to the sky and dream great things, we still have to remember that the opportunity for change lies at our feet. We just have to take the first step.”
The first step in preserving the oceans is developing a new consciousness. Reason and science can help ensure that proper regulations are in place to protect sea life. Similarly, educational programs like Morris’s Sharks4Kids can also help protect the marine ecosystem and the lives of those men and women who work to provide our seafood in the long run. But the emergence of a new consciousness is essential if we are to have any chance of making significant changes and effecting real progress. When the right consciousness is in place, along with reason and education, the appropriate legislation—such as banning shark tournaments and controlling longline fishing—could automatically happen.
One need only look at killer whales for an example of how the culture can change its perception of an apex predator. At one time, not too long ago, people feared them, calling them the most savage of all animals in the sea. When they weren’t reportedly swallowing porpoises and seals by the dozen, killer whales were rumored to knock men off icebergs to eat them. But then reality started to seep in. In 1965, a 22-foot-long male was captured near the town of Namu, British Columbia. Today, almost everyone knows the story of this killer whale, which was later named Shamu. But back then, because Shamu was only the second killer whale captured, the species was still the stuff of nightmares: sea-dwelling homicidal maniacs, not at all the intelligent, sensitive creatures we think of today. In 1968, SeaWorld in San Diego opened its doors, putting Shamu on exhibition. As part of the show, the trainer brushed Shamu’s teeth with a giant toothbrush, and then inserted his head inside Shamu’s mouth. Everything people knew about killer whales was changing right there before their eyes. It was as if someone were trying to kiss a king cobra. Even before smartphones and texting, the new view of killer whales went viral. SeaWorld made stuffed Shamus that little children took home to cuddle with in their beds. More recently, the documentary Blackfish showed how killer whales like Shamu suffer in captivity in SeaWorld. If such a change in perception can happen for killer whales, it can happen for sharks.
Beyond the story of Shamu, the larger history of whales is instructive. Humans hunted whales almost to extinction. By the late 1930s, more than 50,000 whales were killed annually, and the world’s whale population was closer to extinction than sharks are today. To save the whales, the world community decided to intervene. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned whale hunting in 1986. Thirty years later, no whale species was brought to extinction, and many are now in the process of recovering. The same worldwide action can save the sharks. A similar “fins attached” law for sharks can help save sharks around the world just as the IWC’s whaling ban did for whales. Following such an international decree, the sharks, the seas, and fishing industries will show immediate improvement.
AS JEFFREY CARRIER SUGGESTED, AMERICAN CONSUMERS have tremendous influence. Seafood is relatively inexpensive across the country; cans of tuna regularly sell for less than the cost of the Sunday Times. But the low price of tuna carries a cost in terms of the long-term health of the ocean that does not show up on the final grocery bill. Taking into account fair labor wages for fishermen and canning employees—and the damage inflicted to the ocean through overfishing and the ecological impact of the slow annihilation of sharks—a single can of tuna isn’t the bargain it’s often made out to be. When consumers use their purchasing decisions as a form of protest and demand change, it sends a powerful message to producers, who live and die with the demands of the consumer. Consumers in general want to purchase sustainable food captured and harvested by fair-labor hands. Until recently, though, they have been unable to access accurate, up-to-date information about where their seafood comes from, how it’s caught, and by whom. This is slowly starting to change, however, as exciting technologies are capable of bringing this information to average consumers.
John Amos is a pioneer in this kind of radical transparency, the technological next step in Greenpeace’s subversive act of “bearing witness.” Satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the earth can follow events in real time and allow people to see and understand the environmental consequences of human activity on the planet, including the oceans. In 2001, Amos left the corporate world to start a nonprofit called SkyTruth, which uses satellites to capture images of ocean and landscape degradation caused by mining, deforestation, and other human activities. In April 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, SkyTruth was the first to challenge BP’s inaccurate reporting about the rate of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Amos and his team used satellite images to estimate the actual amount of oil gushing from the damaged well. Later, Amos realized that he could create a big data technology platform leveraging satellites to provide vast amounts of information that could be useful in regulating and monitoring fishing. Such a platform could create a truly global view of commercial fishing and might assist in improving the way fisheries operate.
Because he realized he couldn’t undertake this project alone, he approached Google and the conservation advocacy group Oceana about partnering with SkyTruth. Google was a perfect partner because the company had already developed the Google Earth platform, which gives anyone with a computer the ability to view ships anywhere in the world’s oceans. Anyone can go online and see whether any illegal or unregulated fishing is occurring. And because Oceana builds campaigns to implement science-based policies in countries that control one-third of the world’s wild fish catch, they were a natural third partner. As one of the largest international nonprofit organizations in the world dedicated solely to ocean conservation, Oceana’s missions include stopping illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, preventing habitat destruction, and protecting threatened and vulnerable species like turtles and sharks. Working with Google and Oceana, Amos and his SkyTruth team launched a program in 2014 to monitor fishing operations, called Global Fishing Watch (GFW), which uses satellites to track and detect commercial fishing anywhere around the world in real time. The goal of the program is to save the oceans from large commercial fishing operations that continue to overfish.
After learning about GFW, I drove to SkyTruth’s offices in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, about 70 miles from Washington, DC, to talk to Amos. As he described how SkyTruth can leverage the existing satellite infrastructure to track fishing vessels, I began to appreciate the beautiful simplicity of the program’s mission. The way it works is straightforward. Every ship, regardless of its country of origin, uses the automatic identification system (AIS), which broadcasts a radio signal from the vessel to satellites around the world. That signal registers the ship’s identity and location. Since each vessel’s AIS signal is unique, it is possible to follow a particular vessel around the world.
In his office, Amos showed me a digital map with thousands of tiny points of light. Each one represented a fishing vessel. Most of the lights were bunched along the equator, where the warm water helps foster greater fish stocks. Based on the number of lights on the board, I was amazed there are any fish left to harvest after humanity’s mechanized assault on the oceans. Amos explained that a computer system using AIS can create a complete and continuous track of every vessel’s movement, including its average speed. Fish caught by a specific ship can be traced from the exact point of capture all the way to port. Through SkyTruth’s AIS-tracking program, distributors, processors, restaurateurs, buyers, and certification agencies around the world can now demonstrate seafood’s provenance and how it’s handled throughout the fishery supply chain.
By examining the AIS signal over time, observers can estimate what kind of fishing methods a boat is using. “When we look at the automatic identification system broadcasts that a ship sends out, we can reconstruct how it’s moved out in the ocean,” Amos said. “We can actually see when they’ve put nets and lines and hooks in the water to catch fish. And as a consumer who likes to know where his food comes from, this is very interesting to me because now it gives us the possibility that we could see where our fish comes from—not only what company it comes from or what boat it came off of—but where and when in the ocean that fish was caught.”
If consumers want to know, they should be able to simply look up the information online. Amos believes that most people, if presented with the facts, would prefer to eat seafood caught in a way that helps preserve the environment and provide decent livelihoods for those who work in the industry.
SkyTruth’s benefits go beyond identifying where seafood comes from. These satellite capabilities allow governments, especially developing nations with limited resources, to monitor the extent and nature of fishing in local waters. These countries now have a tool to stop illegal fishing. Moreover, countries can now block imports of fish from vessels flagged in countries that fail to enforce fishery laws. By helping manage fisheries in a more sustainable way, satellite surveillance like the kind SkyTruth offers can help bring back fisheries under stress and thereby protect the livelihoods of the hundreds of millions of people around the world who depend on the ocean for food and income. For example, a fisherman in Belize, where trawl fishing is illegal, can use GFW to alert authorities when foreign trawling vessels enter the Belizean exclusive economic zone to fish under the cloak of darkness. And because the vessel-tracking data is open and freely available to the public—and the Belizean media—the government of Belize cannot easily ignore it. Such information could force decisive Belizean oversight. In countries like the Philippines, local authorities can use GFW to protect the fishing rights exclusively provided to municipal fishermen. If a large industrial vessel enters an area where fishing is strictly restricted by law to smaller artisanal boats, GFW can identify the offending vessel.
This technology can also help eliminate slavery at sea. “Some of these crews don’t see shore for a very long time,” said David Manthos, the director of communications at SkyTruth. “By tracking the location of these vessels and understanding who they meet up with out on the open ocean, the system can shed light on this aspect of human trafficking and enslavement on the high seas.”
In a recent study, Global Fishing Watch found at least two instances of fishing vessels staying at sea for more than five hundred days in 2015 and 2016. One Chinese vessel left the Port of Singapore, cut swiftly across the Indian Ocean, rounded the southern tip of Africa, sailed north to the equatorial Atlantic, and then circled and crisscrossed a stretch of ocean between West Africa and Brazil. While on the high seas, it rendezvoused with other vessels on three separate occasions, a possible sign that the Chinese vessel was transporting slaves. More than five hundred days later, it returned to port in Cape Town. This journey raised important questions. What are the conditions for a crew held at sea for five hundred days? Did these men volunteer for the journey, or were they being held against their will? Using GFW technology, governments can follow up on ships and crew to see whether violations are in fact occurring.
“With transponders on vessels that track where it’s going, you can see where it’s been, even fishing in illegal areas,” said Abby McGill, who works at the International Labor Rights Forum, a nonprofit organization protecting workers’ rights. “If it’s been out to sea for years at a time, without having gone back to port, then that is a yellow flag they are using slaves.”
This satellite technology works both ways. It also allows workers to stay in touch with the outside world. “Those transponders now can also give workers basic access to Wi-Fi. Almost everybody has a smartphone today, even in the countries that we’re talking about,” McGill said. “If workers can have just one of these devices on at sea that provides them some level of connectivity, they have some connection to the outside world. They can at least start to raise alarms if something bad is happening on that vessel.”
Many want to avoid buying seafood caught using slave labor, and so consumers should have the ability to know the relevant information about the seafood on their plate. The best place to start is by asking questions at the fish counter or restaurant. Is this fish wild-caught or farm-raised? What country is this seafood from? If it is wild, how was it caught? While some restaurants or grocery stores may not have the answers, they will go to their seafood suppliers and get the information if enough people ask. The reality is that the technology exists today to create a system to provide that information to consumers, thanks to a relatively new government program.
In 2018, the US government implemented its Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), which requires importers of certain seafood products to maintain records to prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) or misrepresented seafood from entering the United States. The government implemented SIMP to protect food security and to ensure sustainability of the world’s ocean resources. Any importer selling into the United States under SIMP is known as “the importer of record” and must report key data about their fish, such as the type of fishing gear used and the evidence of authorization to fish, in addition to other information. The data is loaded into the International Trade Data System (ITDS), which is the government’s single data portal for all import/export reporting. The rule requires certain, though not all, priority species of seafood to be traced from the point of entry into the United States back to the point of harvest or production to verify whether they were lawfully harvested or produced. Those key fish on the list are sharks, tuna, swordfish, and shrimp, which are particularly vulnerable to IUU fishing and/or seafood fraud. The SIMP is not a labeling program, and the information is confidential. However, US sellers of seafood do have the capability to trace their seafood through this program. While the program is not yet consumer-facing, it has the potential to change the way we consume seafood. Individuals do have the ability to play a role in protecting the oceans. Engaged and informed consumers can make a huge difference with their pocketbooks. (NGOs like Greenpeace and the Environmental Defense Fund have published consumer guides to help with seafood selection.) Some may be willing to pay more for seafood that is sustainably caught, while others might not feel the same way. The market can decide.
This one last story also shows hope for the future. A Japanese-flagged longline vessel, Kyoshin Maru, fished the southern Pacific Ocean in 2018. The officers were Japanese, and the fishermen were Indonesians. Under orders of the captain and his officers, the crew caught sharks, slashed off their fins, and watched the sharks, still alive, sink into the black depths. The fins were stuffed in various holds. However, at the end of the voyage, they had a problem. How do you get shark fins from Hawaii to the Indonesian black market to sell them?
The three officers hatched a plan. The Indonesian fishermen legally disembarked at Pier 36 in Honolulu so they could fly back to Indonesia with the shark fins in their suitcases. Meanwhile, the three officers stayed on board and sailed back to Japan to avoid getting caught. Once the fins were in Indonesia, their payday would be $60,000 on the black market.
In their greed, they stuffed 962 shark fins into suitcases. In total, the cargo weighed nearly 200 pounds. When the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials lifted up the luggage, they noticed the bags were particularly heavy. Alarmed, TSA officials x-rayed the suitcases, which revealed triangular-shaped objects inside the suitcases. When they unzipped the luggage, dried fins of oceanic whitetip, bigeye thresher, and silky sharks spilled out on the floor. (In the past fifteen years, all three shark species have seen their populations drop between 80 and 90 percent.) All ten crew members were arrested.
The three officers and the owners of the fishing vessel were also charged because Hawaii passed a law making it unlawful for any person to possess, trade, or distribute shark fins. Hawaii is the only state in the union to have such a law on its books. The Hawaiians have a consciousness rooted in their history and cultural connection to the Pacific. The corporate owners of the fishing vessel face a $5.5 million fine, and the three individual defendants face a fine of $2.7 million. Aiding and abetting the smuggling of goods in the United States carries a maximum term of twenty years’ imprisonment.
The judge released the ten crew members after five days in jail and they went back to Indonesia.2 They were just the mules acting under orders. Because the three officers never entered the United States, they were not arrested. They remain at large, but warrants for their arrest remain out. This story is a microcosm of the current status of fishing; to benefit a few men and companies, men from poor nations are snared into slavery and ordered to commit atrocities that damage the marine ecosystem.
If Hawaii can pass legislation that protects sharks, why can’t Congress? Important legislation is currently pending in the United States Congress. The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act would require all countries importing products related to sharks, rays, and skates into the United States to obtain certification by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This certification would require proof that conservation management and enforcement are comparable to those in the US. While shark-finning is illegal in US waters, shark fins continue to be bought and sold throughout the country. This bill will limit the supply of these products in the US to those that are certified and meet the stringent criteria contained in the bill. Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) introduced the bill as a way to ensure overseas fishermen are held to the same science-based regulations as fishermen in America. He said this bill “encourages other nations wishing to export shark products to the United States to adhere to the same high standards for conservation and management.”3
More important, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, introduced by Rep. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (I-MP) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), would make it illegal to buy or sell shark fins or any product containing shark fins in the United States. Every year, fins from 73 million sharks enter the global shark-fin trade, and the United States still participates in the shark-fin trade. Shark fins are imported into the US from countries that do not have similar shark-finning restrictions. Since 2010, the United States has imported fins from eleven countries, five of which do not have any type of ban on finning.4
Shark tournaments should also be banned in the United States. If the US is going to be the leader in ocean conservation and protecting sharks, the country must go beyond passing legislation and stopping its own form of “American finning,” which is killing sharks as entertainment. The United States is sending the wrong message to the world in allowing such barbarous practices to continue.
The IUCN created the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a multilateral treaty, of which the United States is a signatory, to protect endangered animals. CITES is one of the largest and oldest conservation agreements in existence. This treaty has listed twelve sharks that the IUCN views as either endangered or threatened and where hunting them bears a substantial risk to the species. Some of the sharks on the list—hammerheads, threshers, and porbeagles—are routinely killed in shark tournaments. At the same time, the tournaments contravene the scientifically based conservation measures of IUCN. It is already illegal to kill great white sharks in US territorial waters. Adding the same protections to makos, threshers, and other threatened species is consistent with current law.
In addition, these tournaments result in the loss of apex predators to the detriment of the marine ecosystem. Moreover, sharks are valuable assets that can benefit the local economy in ecotourist operations.
Where is the proof? South Africa has a burgeoning cage-diving industry that generates money and jobs from sharks. For example, Gansbaai, South Africa, attracts people from all over the world, and those tourist dollars pour into the economy from flights, hotels, and numerous other activities. Dozens of charter boat operators take scores of tourists on daily trips. There is only one shark cage-diving operation in Montauk. When I went on the Montauk cage dive, I saw makos and blue sharks. The trip was an engaging experience, but more important, it was good for the local economy. I spent money for a hotel, for meals, and for the tour itself. It was well worth it. With proper advertising, there could be several cage-diving operations in Montauk and other locations along the East Coast. It does not take a lot of imagination to realize the vast number of jobs that would be created to run these operations, maintain the boats, and provide ancillary services like meals, lodging, and other concessions.
With a new consciousness, we will once again feel a connection to the outdoors, the ocean, and its vast sea life. People who seek out those experiences with the sea will derive a great source of satisfaction. The salt in the sea is the same salt in our blood. The freedom of the sea lives in our breasts. Swimming in the ocean brings renewal and happiness. Nature is not something foreign but something that lives within us. We need this connection as a way to survive and fill our soul, otherwise we run the risk of the soul withering up like dried seagrass on the sand. Our spiritual survival depends on a recognition that we are part of the web of life and the ocean.
My two-year journey took me to some of the most beautiful places on earth, sharing the underwater environment with the sharks, who let me into their world, even as an uninvited observer. On land, I met with the world’s leading scientists and marine biologists and today’s most impassioned and creative conservationists and activists, and they taught me more than I thought possible about sharks and what it means to share the world with them. With all journeys, the traveler is changed. Perhaps I gained a few wrinkles from the sun, but I have a great appreciation for the interconnectedness of all life. As I listened to the breaking waves and heard what the ocean had to say, my connection with the ocean and marine wildlife grew. And the sharks were patient and taught me about life in the ocean. At the same time, I learned of the tremendous suffering by humans and animals that takes place on the high seas.
Through my journey, I have become an ocean conservationist.
I know there is a long road ahead to raise awareness about the massacre of sharks around the world, from shark tournaments in Montauk to the black markets of Beijing. But contests that require all your effort are really the only ones important enough to take on. The fight to save the sharks and the ocean will not be easy, but those who make the attempt will join in a fight that is crucial to humanity.
In fifty years, our children will stand on the shoreline and gaze out at the sea. What will they see? Will they witness a lifeless sea filled with broken reefs, amputated versions of the reefs’ former selves, and dull, gray seafloors? Will the schools of hammerheads be only a distant memory? Will our children know the great apex predators only through dusty books on library shelves? Or will our children stand on a beach and see, unfolding before their eyes, the miracle of life? Will they hear the seabirds and the lapping of the waves, and feel the ocean breeze coming from a sea teeming with life? If we act today, we can ensure that our children will look out on the ocean and know that underneath the surface, a shark will be swimming, standing guard over its dominion, protecting the ocean, the greatest miracle on earth, just as it has done for more than 450 million years. And when our children close their eyes and dream of the countless wonders waiting to be discovered in the sea, they will know the full majesty of life and the mysteries it continues to offer.