The Year of the Shark: December News

With your help, Shark Stewards has catalyzed considerable conservation success for sharks in the Congress with the US Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, regulating gear in Pacific fisheries, and passing global trade restrictions this year!

This month, the Congress made the penultimate step towards saving overfished shark populations and endangered sharks from extinction, by passing a bill that will ban the USA’s involvement in the global shark fin trade. 

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Victory for Sharks – 90 Species Protected

Sharks and Rays Receive Appendix II Listing at CITES-CoP19
We just made history protecting sharks at CoP19 in Panama by bringing Requiem sharks (including blue sharks), all hammerhead sharks, freshwater rays, and small guitarfish under protection from the international shark meat and fin trade.

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Over 100 Species of Sharks and Rays Protected at CITES

Yesterday history was made protecting sharks at the the 19th Coalition of the Parties at Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Panama where 184 governments and conservationist Parties convened to consider applying major trade protections for plants and animals in the wildlife trade.

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Stop Overfishing Endangered Sharks in the Global Shark Fin Trade

Join our Friends at Only One Expressing your Support to List 3 Families of sharks and Rays
An upcoming vote at the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) at CoP19 November among over 180 nations could protect endangered sharks from the shark fin trade Please you add your name to this letter urging world leaders to end the shark fin trade driving the decline of many species of sharks.

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Petition to Protect Great Hammerhead Sharks Under Endangered Species Act

Shark Stewards joins the Center for Biological Diversity calling for increased protection for Great Hammerhead Sharks under the ESA and in their complete range. We are also asking NMFS to support the motion to uplist this species and the scalloped hammerhead to Appendix I at the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species in Panama, 2022.

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Over 20,000 Shark Fins Seized, Canadian Importer Fined

On September 25, 2017, Hang Hing Herbal Medicine Ltd. imported a shipment containing 22 bags of processed shark fins, declared as fish bone, into Richmond, BC. The Canada Border Services Agency noted that the shipment contained wildlife products and referred it to ECCC Enforcement. Wildlife enforcement officers inspected the shipment and concluded that the products, declared as fish bone, were in fact shark fins. DNA testing was used to determine that the shipment contained two species of shark, one being a CITES Appendix II-listed species, Carcharhinus longimanus (oceanic whitetip shark). An importer must obtain a permit from the country of export before importing an Appendix II species into Canada. No permit to import the 12, 984 Oceanic Whitetip Shark fins had been obtained.

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eBay Trades in Endangered Shark and Ray Body Parts

Currently eBay allows for vendors to claim or require buyers have CITES permitting without verification, thereby condoning traffic of body parts of protected wildlife. We call on eBay to strengthen and enforce its wildlife policy to block all sales of endangered and protected species including jaws, rostra and shark fin products.

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