Ocean of Hope

Category: Elasmobranchs

What is CITES, and how does it affect sharks and rays worldwide?

Elasmobranchs, Moby the Manta Ray, Sharks
CITES Appendix II listing
Good news for Manta Rays!

March madness came early for ocean conservationists yesterday (9am March 11,2013 local time in Thailand) as the twitterverse was abuzz with the hashtags #CITES #CITES4sharks

So what is CITES, and how does it affect sharks and rays worldwide?

In short, CITES is a treaty between 178 countries to help regulate the worldwide trade in wildlife, much of it endangered. It is especially important for ocean animals, as many of the larger species (like sharks) are migratory and move from various countries’ waters to international waters (the high seas) which are not under the jurisdiction of any country.

The (slightly) longer explanation is that CITES stands for Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (of Wild Fauna and Flora). CITES started in 1975 from a proposal at a 1963 meeting of the International Union (for) Conservation (of) Nature (IUCN). CITES helps to regulate the worldwide trade of over 34,000 plant and animal species.

Right now the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties is meeting in Bangkok, Thailand from March 3rd to March 14, 2013.

What interests the ocean conservationist community is the shark and ray proposals. There are different appendix listings depending on how endangered a species is.

Appendix I lists 1200 species that are threatened with extinction and are affected by worldwide trade, like Asian elephants, tigers, and rhinoceros.

Appendix II lists 21,000 species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction, but could become so if worldwide trade is not monitored or regulated. Great White Sharks are listed here.

Appendix III lists 170 species that specific countries have asked for CITES’ assistance with (and is not mentioned much as Appendix I and II).

Oceanic whitetip sharks, hammerhead sharks, porbeagle sharks, and manta rays are up for Appendix II listing. It is important because currently trade in those animals is up to individual countries to regulate. An Appendix II listing would show the world that those species (and hopefully sharks in general) are in danger of becoming extinct. Sharks are in danger of becoming extinct almost solely because of the shark fin soup trade. Manta rays are becoming endangered because their gill rakers are used in a controversial new formula used in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

What happened was that the proposals for Appendix II listing (oceanic whitetips, hammerheads, porbeagle and manta rays) and Appendix I (sawfish) were voted in! Those animals are not out of hot water yet, as the proposals still need to be ratified on Thursday March 14, 2013. But it is good news overall for those sharks and manta rays!

UPDATE: As of March 14, 2013 all the proposals were ratified so all the shark and manta ray species mentioned are (potentially) regulated worldwide!

Why does Shark Stanley and his friends need your help?

Elasmobranchs, Sharks
SharkStanley Shark Defenders
Find out why Shark Stanley and his friends need your help!

Hi, my name is Shark Stanley and I am a Hammerhead Shark. My friends, Reina the Manta Ray, Pierre the Porbeagle Shark, and Waqi the Oceanic Whitetip Shark, and I live on a coral reef. We are not only featured in a new (free!) children’s book called The Adventures of Shark Stanley and Friends, but we have been traveling all around the terrestrial world. People all around the world want to help keep all sorts of sharks safe from shark finning.

Shark finning is a brutal fishing practice that is very wasteful. Only the shark’s fin is hacked off, and most often the rest of the shark is thrown back into the ocean to die a slow and agonizing death. Shark meat needs to be treated and frozen right away, and most fishing boats don’t have that capability or are targeting other higher priced catches like tuna instead.

Humans around the world also would like to keep manta rays from being killed almost solely for their gill rakers. A specific part of a manta ray’s gill is used in a controversial new Traditional Chinese Medicine formula. Again, like finned sharks, most of the manta ray is not used after their gill rakers are cut off.

If you would like to help, print out a picture of me here (scroll down page) and take a picture with me anywhere in the world.

Shark Defenders would like to collect 5000 photos from all 177 CITES countries, and partner with at least 50 organizations or celebrities. CITES is the abbreviation for the “Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora” and is an international treaty that regulates the trade of endangered wildlife around the world. There is a meeting of CITES scheduled for March of 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Moby the Manta Ray and the Mirror Self-Recognition Test

Elasmobranchs, Moby the Manta Ray
”manta
Manta Ray investigates itself in a mirror

My earlier posts ended pretty grim because I wanted to share how manta rays are being overfished. But today I just want to share one really cool fact about us manta rays. Did you know that manta rays have the largest brain/body ratio of any fish in the sea? Yup, that includes all other rays, elasmobranchs (sharks and rays), and any other fish you can think of. I’m surprised it took humans so long to figure that out, but it is not like we are the easiest of the marine animals to study.

There is one human, Dr.Csilla Ari, who is running experiments on two of my buddies living at the Atlantis Aquarium in the Bahamas. She recently put a large mirror into the manta rays’ tank to test their ability to recognize themselves. Self-recognition in a mirror has only been shown in very large-brained and “smart” species such as dolphins, higher primates, and elephants. In those experiments a mark is placed on the animals’ forehead, and when the animal sees themselves in the mirror they soon investigate the mark. Animals without self-recognition may charge at the “intruder” or show their normal social behavior towards another animal of the same species.

Unfortunately the mark that the scientists placed on the manta rays did not stay, but maybe in the future I should loan them some of the remoras that are forever stuck to me to use as markers! The two manta rays did spend a lot more time than usual in the area where the mirror was. They also blew bubbles in front of the mirror, which manta rays don’t usually do. They also turned their underbellies towards the mirror. It will be monumental when humans finally figure out how smart we manta rays really are!

Please visit Dr. Ari’s blog for more information on her research.

The Endangered Animals of Finding Nemo: Great White Sharks

Endangered Animals of Finding Nemo, Sharks
endangered species in Finding Nemo
Bruce the Great White Shark from Finding Nemo

G’day mate, my name’s Bruce. I’m a Great White Shark. While I am great, heh heh, I am white only on my belly! The rest of me is gray. In Finding Nemo, my and chums and I had the motto, “Fish are friends, not food.” In real life I eat only meat. It gets messy sometimes since there are no barbies (BBQ’s) out in the ocean, mate!

Dory once sang, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” That applies to most of us sharks as we have to swim all the time in order to breathe. Some great white sharks swim great distances, like from Baja California to the Hawaiian islands. Some great white sharks join me off of Oz (Australia) from South Africa, mate! There are so few of us in all of the oceans that us males gotta swim that far to find any Sheilas (females)!

I am 20 feet long and weigh 5,000 pounds. I am as long as a small RV (recreational vehicle), and weigh as much as much as a car!

Since I can’t brush my teeth, mate, I continuously grow new teeth. That way my teeth do not get cavities or get blunt.

I can detect electricity in the seawater around me. This helps me find my food, as your heart gives off electricity, mate.

Though I am widely feared, more sharks are killed a year by humans (73-100 million) than humans killed by sharks (average of 5/year). My fins are very valuable to me as they help me steer, but lately it seems that humans want them more than us sharks! We are close to becoming an endangered species because of shark finning. For more on shark finning, check out previous post by Domino the Whale Shark
You can help by not consuming shark fin soup, visiting Sea Stewards, and watching the documentary Sharkwater.

Domino the Whale Shark Gets Freed From a Fisherman’s Net!

Domino the Whale Shark, Elasmobranchs

There I was gulping seawater as usual to filter out my next meal, and cruising along at a modest 3 mph (4.8 kph) when bam! Instantly, I could no longer get anywhere when I flicked my powerful tail. I am used to swimming without stopping, so this was very strange. Then I felt something surrounding me. I frantically opened and closed my mouth, and gasped in panic until I realized that I was stuck in a fisherman’s net! I have seen fellow whale sharks sucking fish out of fishermen’s nets, but I never realized that I could get stuck in them, eek!

Fortunately, there were some human SCUBA divers and free divers around to help me. The bubbles from the SCUBA divers tickled my belly, and the bubbles made the remoras sticking to me go crazy and tickle me even more! My buddy Dot swam by to make sure I was ok, and boy she sure had a lot of remoras on her that day! Remoras are fish that are have a sucker on the top of their head so they can hitchhike on various large animals for free transportation and protection. They also eat my scraps, and they make all-around good companions. Traveling by myself from plankton bloom to plankton bloom can get lonely otherwise!

It was strange to be touched by a human, but it felt reassuring. Little by little the net was pulled back until, voila! I was free! It only took a minute, but it felt like a lifetime. I hope that never happens again, but I do hope some humans are around if I get caught again in a fisherman’s net!