Via The Ocean Conservancy:

Sharks at Risk: Take Action to Help

When you think of sharks - you may think of magnificent ocean creatures that are sleek, fast, and invulnerable. But, sharks are in fact exceptionally vulnerable to fishing because they grow slowly and produce few young, much like humans. Yes, in many areas, particularly our South Atlantic, sharks are the target of fisheries. Sought primarily for their valuable fins but also their meat, it can be a lucrative business. But sharks just can’t recoup quickly enough to keep pace with intense fishing and many shark species are now seriously overfished, requiring decades even centuries in the case of the dusky to recover.

Two shark species - dusky and sandbar - were in such bad shape in 2002, that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) decided to close a key shark fishing area for most of the year to help the populations of these species to rebuild. But, now NMFS has proposed a premature re-opening of this closure to shark fishing for the month of July, equating to a potential increase in fishing effort of 63%. This move would be devastating to the already depleted populations and could well put the dusky shark on a path to extinction.

Please respond to this alert by November 15 and tell NMFS not to weaken protections for severely depleted sandbar and dusky sharks off the Atlantic Coast. In your response, please also demand that the agency conduct a thorough environmental impact assessment so that decision makers and the public are fully aware of the impacts associated with changes to management measures.

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Tagged: environment environmentalism action+alerts the+ocean+conservancy sharks endangered conservation fishing animals animal+rights