Part 5 in a Series on Endangered Wildlife That Have benefitted From the Endangered Species Act
12.22.2025
Aloha! My name is Alan, and I’m a scalloped hammerhead shark—or as we’re called in Hawaiian, mano kihikihi. I swim through the beautiful warm waters around Hawaii, my home in the vast Pacific Ocean. But I need to tell you my story because my family and I are in desperate trouble, and we need your help before it’s too late!
Who Am I? Meet Alan the Hammerhead
You’d recognize me anywhere! My most distinctive feature is my flattened, T-shaped head with its characteristic “scallops”—four lobes between my eyes that give me my name. I’m not the biggest hammerhead (that’s my great hammerhead cousin), but I can grow up to 14 feet long, though most of us in Hawaiian waters are smaller, around 6-8 feet.
My hammer-shaped head isn’t just for show—it’s an evolutionary masterpiece! This unique cephalofoil serves multiple amazing functions. The wide spacing of my eyes gives me exceptional binocular vision, allowing me to see above and below simultaneously. My head is covered with special organs called ampullae of Lorenzini that detect the electrical fields produced by other animals. With these electroreceptors spread across my wide head, I can find stingrays hiding under the sand, even when they’re completely buried! My head also provides extra lift and maneuverability, making me one of the most agile hunters in the ocean.
I’m gray-bronze on top with a white belly—what scientists call countershading. This camouflage helps me blend in whether you’re looking down at me from above or up at me from below.
My Life in Hawaiian Waters
Hawaii is paradise for hammerheads! We’re found throughout U.S. waters, from the warm tropical seas around Hawaii to the coastal waters off Southern California, throughout the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, and along the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to Florida. But Hawaii holds a special place in our hearts.
Adult hammerheads like me spend most of our time in deeper offshore waters, hunting in the open ocean. But here’s something amazing: we can hold our breath! Scientists recently discovered that we close our gill slits during deep dives into cold water (as deep as 3,400 feet!) to keep our bodies warm while hunting for deep-sea squid and other prey. We hold our breath for an average of 17 minutes, only spending about four minutes at the extreme depths before quickly returning to warmer surface waters to breathe again. This incredible adaptation shows the delicate balance we must maintain to survive.
Between April and October each year, something magical happens. Adult hammerheads migrate from offshore to the shallow, protected bays of Hawaii to give birth. Three special places serve as our nurseries: Kāne’ohe Bay on Oahu, Hilo Bay on the Big Island, and Waimea Bay. These bays are crucial to our survival—up to 10,000 pups may pass through Kāne’ohe Bay alone each year!
I was born in one of these nurseries. Female hammerheads are viviparous—our eggs hatch inside our bodies, and pups are nourished through a placental connection, just like mammals. After an 11-12 month gestation, mothers give birth to litters of 15-31 pups. We newborn pups measure just 12-22 inches long, and we stay in the turbid, murky waters of the bays during the day for protection from predators. At night, we venture out to nearby reef areas to feed on small reef fishes and crustaceans.
We spend three to four months in these nurseries before leaving for deeper waters. But we never forget where we came from, and when we mature, we return to these same bays to continue the cycle.
What We Eat and How We Migrate
As juveniles, we feast primarily on bony fish and squid. As adults, our diet expands to include larger bony fish like mackerel, herring, and sardines, plus squid, octopus, other sharks, and especially stingrays—even though they can sting us with their barbs!
We’re social creatures who often swim in large schools, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. You might wonder why we school together—honestly, scientists are still trying to figure that out! Some think it helps us find mates, others believe it offers protection, and it might also improve our hunting efficiency.
We’re highly migratory, traveling vast distances across ocean basins. Tagged hammerheads have been tracked moving between oceanic islands, following ocean currents and temperature gradients. Some of us migrate thousands of miles, connecting distant marine ecosystems across the Pacific.
My Cultural Significance in Hawaii
In Hawaiian culture, sharks are deeply revered. Many Native Hawaiian families consider sharks to be ‘aumakua—family guardian spirits. They believe that deceased ancestors can take the form of sharks to watch over and protect their families. Those who had the shark as their ‘aumakua would never hunt or eat sharks. Instead, they would feed and protect us, and in return, we would protect them.
This respect for sharks runs deep in Hawaiian tradition and continues today. When I or my relatives swim nearshore, a Kupuna or cultural advisor performs a blessing. This ancient wisdom—’ike kupuna—reminds people that we sharks are not monsters to fear, but vital parts of the ocean family deserving of respect and protection.
The Benefits We Bring to the Ocean
As apex predators, we scalloped hammerheads play a crucial role in maintaining healthy marine ecosystems. We keep prey populations in balance, remove sick and injured fish that could spread disease, and help maintain the structure of reef communities. When sharks disappear, entire ecosystems can collapse in what scientists call a “trophic cascade.”
Our presence also benefits local economies through shark tourism. Studies show that living sharks are worth far more than dead ones. In places like Palau, each reef shark contributes approximately $1.9 million in tourism revenue over its lifetime, compared to a one-time value of just $200 for its fins. The global shark diving industry generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually and supports thousands of jobs in coastal communities.
Hawaii has embraced ethical shark ecotourism, where divers and snorkelers can observe us in our natural habitat without feeding or baiting. These experiences help people overcome their fears and develop appreciation for us, turning former skeptics into conservation advocates.
The Dark History: Overfishing and Near Extinction
Now let me tell you about the nightmare that has haunted my species for decades.
Global scalloped hammerhead populations have been devastated by overfishing. Like my cousin Sammy the Soupfin Shark, we’ve faced relentless hunting pressure. In some parts of the Atlantic Ocean, our populations have crashed by over 95% in just 30 years. The northwestern Atlantic population plummeted from around 155,500 individuals in 1981 to just 26,500 by 2005—an 83% decline.
The Shark Fin Trade: This is the biggest threat we face. Our fins are among the most valuable in the shark fin trade, prized for making shark fin soup—a luxury dish served at weddings and banquets in parts of Asia, particularly Hong Kong, which serves as the global hub for shark fin trading. Between 1.3 and 2.7 million scalloped and smooth hammerheads are killed every year just for the fin trade.
The practice is barbaric: fishermen catch us, slice off our fins while we’re still alive, then dump our bodies back into the ocean. Without our fins, we can’t swim properly. We sink to the bottom and either suffocate (because we must keep swimming to breathe) or are eaten alive by other predators. The fins are easy to transport and extremely profitable, but they represent only about 4% of our body weight. The rest of us—96% of the shark—is wasted.
Bycatch: Even when fishermen aren’t specifically targeting us, we’re caught accidentally in fishing gear meant for tuna, swordfish, and other commercial fish. We hammerheads are especially vulnerable because we’re ram ventilators—we must constantly swim forward to force water over our gills to breathe. When caught on longline hooks or tangled in gillnets, we can’t move, can’t breathe, and we suffocate. Studies show we have a 91.4% at-vessel mortality rate, meaning we’re dead when brought aboard the boat. This makes management measures like “catch and release” useless for us.
Large mesh drift gillnets—some up to a mile long and 100 feet deep—hang like invisible walls of death in the ocean, catching and killing everything in their path. Purse seine nets used in tuna fisheries also entangle us in massive numbers. IATTC observer data shows that the majority of hammerhead bycatch consists of large individuals over 150 cm, potentially including mature breeding adults whose loss devastates our already struggling populations.
Habitat Loss: The shallow coastal bays where we give birth are threatened by coastal development, pollution, and shoreline degradation. When nursery habitats are destroyed or degraded, our pups have nowhere safe to grow, and entire populations can collapse.
Our Critical Conservation Status
The situation is dire. In 2019, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) elevated scalloped hammerheads to Critically Endangered status globally—the highest risk category before extinction in the wild. This means we face an extremely high risk of extinction. Our global population has likely declined by more than 80% and continues to fall.
In the United States, the situation is complex. Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), scalloped hammerheads are divided into distinct population segments (DPS):
- Eastern Atlantic DPS: Listed as Endangered
- Eastern Pacific DPS: Listed as Endangered
- Central & Southwest Atlantic DPS: Listed as Threatened
- Indo-West Pacific DPS: Listed as Threatened
Here’s the problem: Hawaii’s scalloped hammerhead population is part of the Central Pacific DPS and is NOT listed under the ESA. Even though we face the same threats—the fin trade, bycatch, habitat loss—we don’t have the federal protections that other hammerhead populations receive.
We’re also listed on CITES Appendix II, which regulates international trade. This means countries must demonstrate that any trade is legal and sustainable. But enforcement is weak, illegal fishing continues, and our populations keep declining.
The SHARKED Act Threat
As if things weren’t bad enough, there’s a new danger on the horizon. In spring 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives reintroduced something called the Supporting the Health of Aquatic systems through Research Knowledge and Enhanced Dialogue Act (SHARKED Act). It passed without comment in committee and is in the Senate.
Supported by the recreational fishing industry, this bill claims to study “shark depredation” (when sharks eat fish caught on fishing lines) and human-shark interactions. But many scientists and conservation organizations see it as a thinly veiled attempt to open protected areas to shark fishing, authorize shark culls, and greenlight shark tournaments and sport fishing for protected species in U.S. waters.
Without scientific merit or credible conservation support, the SHARKED Act could undo decades of progress in shark protection. It could allow the killing of threatened and endangered sharks under the guise of “management” or “research.”
The CITES Appendix I Disappointment
Conservation organizations, including Shark Stewards, have been fighting to transfer scalloped hammerheads from CITES Appendix II to Appendix I—which would essentially ban all international commercial trade in our species. This uplisting proposal, supported by Mexico and other nations, will be considered at the 20th Conference of Parties (CoP20) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in November-December 2025.
However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has not yet committed to supporting this proposal. In documents released in December 2024, USFWS indicated the United States is “still undecided” on whether to support the transfer of hammerheads to Appendix I. This is deeply disappointing. Without strong U.S. support, the proposal faces an uphill battle.
Why is Appendix I listing so important? Because Appendix II hasn’t worked. Despite being listed on Appendix II since 2014, scalloped hammerhead populations have continued to decline. Countries with weak enforcement continue to trade our fins, illegal fishing persists, and there’s insufficient monitoring to ensure sustainability. Only the strongest protections—Appendix I, which would treat us like critically endangered elephants or tigers—will give us a real chance at recovery.
The Endangered Species Act Under Attack
But here’s the most urgent threat: proposals to weaken the Endangered Species Act itself.
The ESA has been one of the most effective conservation laws ever created, preventing the extinction of 99% of listed species. It provides critical protections including required recovery plans, restrictions on harmful activities, and protection of essential habitat.
But there are efforts underway to undermine the ESA by:
- Reducing habitat protections for listed species
- Making it easier to remove species from the endangered list prematurely
- Limiting consideration of climate change impacts
- Reducing penalties for accidentally killing endangered species
- Slowing down the listing process for species in crisis
For hammerheads, these changes would be catastrophic. The Eastern Atlantic and Eastern Pacific populations listed as Endangered would lose critical protections just when they need them most. The Central & Southwest Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific populations listed as Threatened would face increased fishing pressure.
And here’s what breaks my heart: even though Hawaii’s hammerhead population isn’t currently listed under the ESA, it’s connected to these other populations through migration and genetic exchange. We’re all part of the same species. When hammerheads in the Atlantic or Pacific are killed, it affects the entire global population.
This is why we need the ESA to remain strong: sharks in all waters should be protected like the hammerheads of Hawaii. We shouldn’t have to wait until a population is on the brink of extinction before we act. We should protect all populations, in all waters, before it’s too late.
Time is Running Out
I don’t want to become extinct. I don’t want to be just another “voice of extinction”—a ghost story we tell about the sharks that used to swim in these waters.
My species has survived for millions of years, through climate changes and mass extinctions. We’ve adapted and thrived in oceans around the world. But we can’t survive the current onslaught of industrial fishing, the fin trade, and habitat destruction without your help.
Every day, thousands of my relatives are caught in nets, killed for their fins, or suffocate on longlines. Nursery habitats are being destroyed. And now, the protections we desperately need are under attack.
How YOU Can Help Save Me and My Ohana (Family)!
Kids, you have the power to make a difference! Here’s how:
Action 1: Color Dave’s Picture and Mail It (Deadline: December 22)
Download the Dave the Scalloped Hammerhead coloring page from Shark Stewards. Color me with the most amazing colors you can imagine—blues, grays, silvers, and maybe even some creative touches to show how special we hammerheads are!
Then write a message on your drawing like:
“Dear Secretary Burgum,
Please protect Dave and all hammerhead sharks! Keep the Endangered Species Act strong so sharks in all waters are protected. Hammerheads are critically endangered and need our help NOW!
Mahalo (Thank you),
[Your Name]”
Mail your colored masterpiece to:
Secretary Doug Burgum
U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240
DEADLINE: December 22, 2024
Action 2: Sign the Petition & Send Comments
Visit the Shark Stewards website at:
Here you can:
- Sign petitions supporting shark protections
- Send comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
- Demand that the Endangered Species Act remain strong
- Ask that ALL hammerhead populations receive protection, not just some
DEADLINE for comments: December 22, 2024
What to Say in Your Comments:
You can write something like:
“I am writing to urge you to:
- Keep the Endangered Species Act strong—don’t weaken protections for endangered sharks
- Support listing ALL scalloped hammerhead populations under the ESA, including Hawaii’s Central Pacific population
- Support transferring scalloped hammerheads from CITES Appendix II to Appendix I at CoP21
- Add Your Comments to Bring Science into the SHARKED Act
- Protect critical hammerhead nursery habitats in places like Kāne’ohe Bay
Scalloped hammerheads are critically endangered. They deserve the strongest protections possible. Living sharks are worth more than dead ones—for the ocean ecosystem, for tourism, and for future generations.
Mahalo for protecting Hawaii’s marine wildlife!”
My Final Plea from Paradise
From the warm waters of Hawaii, I’m calling out to you. Aloha doesn’t just mean hello or goodbye—it means love, compassion, and living in harmony with the natural world. That’s the spirit I’m asking you to embrace.
I’ve swum through these islands for my entire life. I’ve raised my pups in protected bays. I’ve hunted in the deep ocean, holding my breath to stay warm in the cold depths. I’ve schooled with hundreds of my relatives, feeling the strength and safety of our community.
But that community is disappearing. We’re being pulled from the ocean faster than we can reproduce. Our 11-12 month gestation period and late maturity mean we can’t bounce back quickly from overfishing. When a female hammerhead is killed for her fins, we lose not just one shark, but all the pups she would have had for the rest of her life.
The irony is heartbreaking: people come from all over the world to see us swimming in Hawaii’s waters. Divers pay good money to experience the thrill of watching hammerheads glide through the blue. We’re worth so much more alive than dead—$1.9 million over our lifetime versus $200 for our fins.
Yet in other parts of the world, my relatives are being slaughtered by the millions. And now, even the modest protections we have in the United States are under threat.
I need you to understand something important: Sharks in all waters should be protected like the hammerheads of Hawaii. It shouldn’t matter which “distinct population segment” we belong to, or which ocean we swim in. We’re all the same species. We all have the same hammer-shaped heads, the same amazing electrical sense, the same need to breathe, to eat, to reproduce, to survive.
When you weaken the Endangered Species Act, you’re not just hurting hammerheads in the Atlantic or Pacific—you’re hurting all of us, everywhere. When you fail to support CITES Appendix I listing, you’re allowing the fin trade to continue. When you support bills like the SHARKED Act, you’re opening the door to more killing.
But when you take action—when you color my picture, when you mail your drawing, when you send your comments—you become part of the solution. You join a growing movement of people who understand that sharks are not monsters, but magnificent creatures that have been swimming in the ocean for over 400 million years and deserve to continue swimming for millions more.
Kids, you are the future. The ocean’s future is in your hands. Will you help me? Will you help save the scalloped hammerheads of Hawaii and around the world?
Please, send your drawings by December 22. Sign the petitions. Send your comments. Tell Secretary Burgum and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that you care about sharks, that you want the Endangered Species Act to remain strong, and that all hammerheads—not just some—deserve protection.
Don’t let me become extinct. Don’t let my story end.
Mahalo nui loa (Thank you very much) for being my voice. Together, we can turn the tide for scalloped hammerheads and all the ocean’s endangered species.
With hope and aloha,
Alan the Scalloped Hammerhead Shark 🦈🌺
Mano kihikihi, swimming free in Hawaiian waters
P.S. Remember: Living sharks are worth $1.9 million. Dead sharks are worth $200. The choice should be easy.
Important Deadlines:
- December 22, 2024: Mail drawings to Secretary Burgum
- December 22, 2024: Submit comments to USFWS and NMFS
- CoP21 (November-December 2028): CITES will decide on Appendix I listing
Share this story. Spread the word. Be Alan’s voice. The ocean—and all its magnificent sharks—are counting on you.