International Shark Day: One in two species is at risk
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The life of sharks in the Mediterranean Sea lasts: one out of two species is at risk. Much more than in other oceans. A constant and daily threat, amplified by fishing and commerce, and in defiance of the image that the predator par excellence has spread in films and literature. Today, on the occasion of Shark Awareness Day, the international day established to deepen their knowledge and protection, sharks and rays are sounding a new alarm bell: 42 species that have to deal with man in the Mare Nostrum. Often succumbing. And the observations near the coast, particularly in Sicily, of several specimens in recent weeks – mainly blue sharks – are not considered a relevant indicator. “The reason is easy to say, the possibility of photographing or being able to make a video of the marine species living in the Mediterranean has increased thanks to the diffusion of mobile phones or video cameras capable of documenting in real time what is happening around us and of sharing it immediately”, underline the experts of LIFE ELIFE, a project created to protect sharks, with co-financing from the European Commission. It lasts five years and involves ten partners in Italy, Greece and Cyprus: among these the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, the Marine Protected Area of the Pelagie Islands (Lampedusa and Linosa) and that of Tavolara-Punta Coda Cavallo (Sardinia), Costa Edutainment, the Mediterranean Consortium, the National Research Council, Legambiente, the Marine & Environmental Research (MER) Lab, Algowatt and the University of Padua. The target? Monitor and defend species considered particularly vulnerable from potential human impact, such as dogfish, porbeagle sharks, thresher sharks, gray sharks, basking sharks and kite sharks. But also dogfish, blue shark and mako shark.
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Beyond Spielberg, so the citizens become protagonists
“Sharks and rays are among the species most at risk of extinction mainly due to human impacts, including bycatch and habitat degradation”, nods Massimiliano Bottaro, researcher at the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, project leader. “Today is therefore a useful day to remind citizens of the need to preserve the sea and its inhabitants, starting with those unjustly most feared, but at the same time most vulnerable”. Although the times of Spielberg and the famous saga that presented the shark as a potential sea monster blinded by rage are long gone, sharks “did not benefit from that process of revaluation enjoyed by most of the large terrestrial and they remain as feared as they are unknown to most”, denounces Bottaro again. All this despite the fact that potentially dangerous species in the Mediterranean Sea can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Also for this reason, the ELIFE project is relaunching the so-called “SharkApp” in recent weeks, a free and decidedly user-friendly App, through which it is possible to report shark sightings. Among the initiatives of these hours, a social event coordinated by Legambiente, on “Sharks in the Mediterranean Sea: fake news, curiosities and threats to the species” (Friday 14 July, visible on the Legambiente YouTube page and on the La Nuova Ecologia website) and a face-to-face appointment, with educational activities for children and tourists, at the Conigli beach in Lampedusa with the experts of the CNR, the Pelagie Islands Protected Marine Area and Legambiente (Friday 14, from 10am).
Potential allies in the fight against climate change
And these are important hours for the protection of sharks. Hours in which WWF has launched an appeal to all Mediterranean countries to implement the binding measures issued by the recently adopted FAO General Commission for Mediterranean Fisheries and CITES, which could improve fisheries and trade in sharks and rays and help the recovery of species belonging to this group and still threatened. And there is one aspect, which not everyone knows, which reinforces the importance of shark protection: healthy populations play, underlines the WWF, “an ‘unsuspected’ and important role in mitigating the impact of climate change, increasing with their presence and activities are carbon sequestration and supporting marine biodiversity”. Not bad, in short, in a Mediterranean that is overheating. “That’s right – confirms Giulia Prato, Sea Manager of WWF Italy – sharks and rays are important for our ecosystems, also because through the so-called vertical migrations they move nutrients between the different layers of the ocean and all the species of large sharks and rays that over the course of their lives they store large quantities of carbon in their bodies: carbon that is stored on the ocean floor when, after their death, the carcasses of these animals fall into the depths.The capture of sharks prevents the ‘storage’ in the oceans of up to 5 millions of tons of carbon: healthy populations can therefore contribute, as also happens with great whales, to the fundamental ‘blue’ carbon cycle of our ocean and help mitigate the impact of climate change”.
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“We need a national action plan”
Virtuous protection actions are not lacking, even in this case: above all, the one in synergy with the fishermen of Monopoli in Puglia, as part of the activities of the “GenerAzioneMare” campaign of WWF Italy. The southern Adriatic, as confirmed by satellite data, is moreover a fundamental area for the verdesche, which spend most of the summer and autumn there. Here as elsewhere, the WWF underlines again, bycatch mitigation strategies have provided promising results, presented in the various international FAO and EU fora, which will be further tested and studied in depth during 2023 and 2024. But it may not be enough: for this, While it welcomes recent measures to ensure more sustainable shark and ray fisheries in the Mediterranean and to soon ban recreational fishing for 39 species, WWF raises some doubts about their effectiveness, which could be undermined by slow national implementation. Hence the explicit request to the Italian institutions to develop a National Action Plan (NPOA) for the protection and management of sharks and rays, through the establishment of an inter-ministerial coordination table and in consultation with the experts of the scientific community, the fishermen and civil society organisations. A body that “would make it possible to respond to the commitments made in a harmonious way, improving data collection at a national level, providing for mitigation and management measures for accidental catches on the basis of the best scientific knowledge and the protection of essential habitats and endangered species”.
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The scientist who monitors (and saves) the ocelots
It’s not, of course, just the big sharks. For example, “Stellaris”, the only project to monitor a population of small sharks, is dedicated to small ocelots in the bank of Santa Croce, off the coast of Castellammare di Stabia. It is a commercial and particularly sedentary species, the referent is the president of the MedSharks association (medsharks.org), Eleonora de Sabata. She that she recognizes the individual specimens thanks to the patches with which they are covered, almost like fingerprints. “Our data shows a decrease in the population over the last ten years, in line with what is happening elsewhere, for example in Sicily. On a more general scale, although fragmented, there are protection laws. But they are often complex to apply, also because the recognition of protected species is not simple, neither for fishermen nor for controllers.For this reason too we place great trust in the European project LIFE European Sharks, which will start in October with the aim of disseminating knowledge of the laws and individual species”.
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