The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted Friday to stop issuing commercial fishing permits for drift gillnet gear used to target swordfish and thresher sharks in waters off the Oregon coast. These expansive driftnets are known to ensnare and drown dolphins, sea lions, endangered sea turtles and other animals. Friday’s decision means that the State … Read more
A international panel of independent fisheries experts convened by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today found that new trade protections are warranted for five threatened shark species – oceanic whitetip, porbeagle, and scalloped, great and smooth hammerheads. In October, the United States (co-sponsored by Palau) and the European Union submitted proposals … Read more
Oceana commends the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today for passing the Shark Conservation Act of 2009. “Shark management in the U.S. has suffered for long enough,” said Beth Lowell, federal policy director at Oceana. “It’s time to enact this shark finning bill into law.” The Act would require all sharks caught … Read more
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) failed to establish adequate management measures at its meeting in Recife, Brazil this week for commercially valuable bluefin tuna and sharks, whose populations have plummeted over recent decades. Driven to the verge of collapse by the greed of the international market and decades of mismanagement … Read more
The United States submitted proposals last night to list six threatened shark species – oceanic whitetip, dusky, sandbar and great, scalloped and smooth hammerheads – under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The European Union also submitted proposals for the listing of porbeagle and spiny dogfish sharks. Proposals submitted … Read more
Oceana and other members of the Shark Alliance scored a major victory for sharks in the European Parliament when the Parliament decided to reject a recommendation from its own Fisheries Committee to increase the allowable ratio of shark fins to bodies from 5 percent to 6.5 percent.
Thousands of Oceana Wavemakers contacted the Vermont Country Story, a leading catalog retailer, convincing it to stop selling a skin enhancer containing shark squalane. In an ironic note, the product was marketed under the name “Oceana.”
After more than a year of pressure from Oceana, Dr. Susan Lark, an online wellness personality who markets health and beauty products, announced that she will sell cosmetic products containing squalane derived from olives rather than deep-sea sharks. More than 15,000 Wavemakers contacted Lark, telling her it was unconscionable to sacrifice already at-risk shark populations … Read more
In June 2008, Following advocacy from Oceana, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) finalized a regulation requiring the landing of sharks with their fins still attached in the federal waters of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, also after Oceana’s urging, passed similar regulations in August 2008 for the … Read more
Oceana, along with other conservation organizations, helped advance legislation that would establish a national requirement to land sharks with fins attached. In March 2009, after significant advocacy by Oceana, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 81) to improve existing laws originally intended to prevent shark finning. The bill … Read more
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We have already protected over 4 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea life - but there is still more to be done.