Table 6-1 



Productivity in metric tons 

 and status of Atlantic sliark 

 fisheries. 



1999 

 OUR LIVING OCEANS 



'1994-96 average 



^Includes sandbar, Caribbean reel, blacktip, dusky, spinner, silky, bull, bignose, Galapagos, night, tiger, lemon, nurse, narrowtooth, scalloped, smootin 

 and great hammeriiead sharks 



-^he LTPY for large coastal shark species by number of individuals is 143-149 



''Includes Atlantic and Caribbean sharpnose, finetooth. blacknose, bonnethead, smalltail, and Atlantic angel sharks 

 ''Includes longfm and shortfin mako, blue, porbeagle, thresher, bigeye thresher, oceanic whilelip. sevengill, sixgill, and bigeye six-gill sharks 



Whitetip reef sharks. 



landed in weight measurements is difficult for two 

 reasons. First, weight estimates tor recreational 

 catches are highly variable because a relatively .small 

 number ot animals are measured and weighed by 

 the biologists that collect recreational statistics. 

 Second, a significant amount of the commercial 

 catch is only reported under the general category 

 of "sharks," and the species identification either 

 cannot be or is not reported. As a result, these land- 

 ings are assigned to one of the management groups 

 analytically for statistical purposes. 



Thus, another set of estimated mean weights 

 per fish for recreational catches or another set of 

 assumptions regarding the allocation of the uni- 

 dentified commercial shark landings is likely to 

 produce different total weights for the recent av- 

 erage yield (RAY). To help minimize some of the 



effects of these two factors, the landings and catch 

 statistics used in the stock assessments are com- 

 piled in numbers of animals instead of weight mea- 

 surements. Thus, the estimates of long-term po- 

 tential yield (LTPY) in Table 6.f are presented as 

 ranges in numbers of fish. 



The numbers that were reported landed or dis- 

 carded tor sharks in the large coastal management 

 group tor 1988 through f997 are presented in 

 Figure 6-f. Although fishery statistics for sharks 

 were collected prior to 1988, these earlier statis- 

 tics are not considered as suitable for assessment 

 and management purposes. The decreasing trend 

 in these data is apparent beginning in 1 992; how- 

 ever, estimates of the numbers ot sharks that are 

 discarded by commercial fishing were not avail- 

 able prior to 1993. Also, the data tor 1997 are 

 preliminary and likely to change as the fnial re- 

 views are completed on these data. 



rhe f996 Shark l-A'aluation Workshop report 

 (SEFSC, 1996) concluded that catch rates of many 

 ot the species and species groups declined by about 

 50-75% from the early 1970's to the mid 1980's. 

 Flowever, the rapid rate of decline in the cati.li 

 rates that characterized the stocks in the early 

 1980's had slowed significantly in the 1 990's. 

 Partly based on results from the 1 99(i workshop 

 (SEFSC, 1996), a 50% reduction in catches of 

 large coastal species (i.e. relative to 1995) was tar- 

 geted. This reduction was to be achieved by a 509''(i 

 reduction in the commercial quota tor the large 

 coastal management group and a reduction ot the 

 recreational bag limit to two fish (the previously 

 established recreational bag limit was fotir fish per 



1 22 



