Mexico recently adopted national regulations protecting several threatened shark species in the Atlantic from being caught or retained as bycatch. Shark conservationists welcome the protections but say they are long overdue, coming years after the country’s commitments to a multilateral fishery regulator.
Mexican fisheries catch a significant number of various shark species in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The new rules are meant for longline fisheries operating within all the waters managed under the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. These fisheries are now prohibited from retaining on board, storing, transshipping, disembarking or offering for sale five types of sharks, either whole or in part.
These are the vulnerable bigeye thresher (Alopias superciliosus) and silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis), the critically endangered oceanic whitetip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus), the endangered shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus), and hammerhead sharks (genus Sphyrna) — with the exception of the endangered bonnethead (Sphyrna tiburo).
The new regulations are based on ICCAT recommendations, the government said in a press release.
ICCAT is responsible for the management of tuna and similar species in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas. While ICCAT’s recommendations are legally binding for member states, including Mexico, each country must adopt them into its national laws to become locally enforceable. The recent Mexican regulations enshrine ICCAT recommendations that were made between 2009 and 2021.
“With this measure, Mexico complies with international commitments and promotes responsible, sustainable fishing practices that respect protected species,” Mexico’s National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission said in the release.
“Although long overdue, Mexico’s new shark protections have the potential to significantly bolster international conservation efforts for some of the Atlantic’s most imperiled species,” Sonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International, said in a statement.
Iris Ziegler, head of fisheries policies and ocean advocacy at the German Foundation for Marine Conservation, told Mongabay the new regulations, while good, fail to include some important species, such as manta rays (genus Mobula) and whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), which ICCAT has also recommended for protection.
Ziegler noted the new regulations apply only to “larger longline vessels,” without defining what “larger” means. In contrast, the ICCAT recommendations apply to all vessels targeting tuna-like species, including purse seine vessels and gillnetters, she said.
The Mexican regulations also state that if any of the listed species are incidentally caught, they must be released under conditions that maximize their chances of survival. But without clear guidance for best handling and release practices, this rule “can be interpreted at the fishermen’s choice,” Ziegler said.
Sharks are both targeted by Mexican fisheries and caught as bycatch, Ziegler added. “As Mexico borders both the Atlantic and the Pacific with many vessels moving between both oceans especially at its southern tip, it would be important to extend these retention bans to both oceans.”
Banner image: A oceanic whitetip shark with pilot fish. Image by Johanlantz via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
