Overfishing threatens some species

Posted on Sun, Dec. 09, 2007

By MEGHA SATYANARAYANA
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Biologist Kristen Kelly of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration holds a year-old shark to measure its length on a recent shark tagging expedition on the R/V Tommy Munro. Click for more photos. BLAKE LACY/SUN HERALD

The team of scientists set out on a boat with four satellite transmitter tags in search of silky and dusky sharks. Once attached, the tags would log the sharks' location, the water temperature and depth every minute, and then pop off weeks or months later and transmit the data to a satellite. The data would become a virtual map of shark travels, a way to "swim" beside them from a lab chair.

Shark life is a mystery to biologists, so the satellite tags are a new and welcome technology. Silky and dusky sharks are being overfished. Shark meat is worthless, but their fins fetch high dollar prices as an aphrodisiac and the base for shark fin soup. Understanding their travel patterns will help protect them.

"If it goes unchecked, we're going to lose the species," said Eric Hoffmayer, a shark biologist at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Lab. Hoffmayer led the expedition, about 70 miles due south into deep water sparsely peppered with oil and natural gas rigs and the occasional deep sea fishing boat.

Sharks are at the top of the marine food chain. As they decline, their prey becomes more abundant. The abundant prey then decimates its food source, often shrimp, crabs and other seafood at the base of the chain.

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