A Perfect Storm for Sharks? Julian McAlpine’s documentary film The Night Is Always Young tries to find out what’s happening to these charismatic predators.
Sharks are threatened and I’ve made a film about this (writes Julian McAlpine on 11th November 2015), asking experts what are the consequences of killing a hundred million sharks a year, and what approaches can be taken to ensure they are effectively conserved (whilst also trying to meet food security, poverty reduction, and climate change mitigation targets)?
Over-fishing and threatened with extinction
The oceans contribute food and ecosystem services, and fish is the main source of protein for a billion people, as well as providing a living for millions. Demand for fish is increasing - production is predicted to surpass that of meat by the 2020s, and to grow by 50% by 2050 to keep pace. If managed sustainably, as renewable natural assets, there should always be enough fish in the sea, but the oceans are confronted by extraordinary change from generations of unsustainable fishing, and plus impacts from climate change, pollution, and other habitat degradation.
Despite an increased fishing effort the catch over the last twenty years has declined and exploitative fishing has followed a similar trend to deforestation, originating in Europe and North America, and migrating to tropical regions where legislation and quotas are often poorly enforced, catches falsely recorded, and illegal fishing prevalent.
It is estimated that 100 million sharks (range 63m -273m, 6.4%-7.9% of all sharks, ref: Worm et al., 2013) are killed every year, mainly as bycatch or for their fins. Two-thirds of the 1,041 chondrichthyan fishes recorded are threatened
with extinction: One of the oldest and most diverse vertebrate lineages, occupying fundamental upper tier roles in their food webs, are the vertebrate class most threatened with extinction - just 23% are listed as of Least Concern in the IUCN Red List (Dulvy et al., 2014).
Erasing predators or prey (shrimp, the most popular marine food, are also over-exploited and invertebrates are not accorded the same legal protection as fish) can lead to trophic cascades which impacts all stages of the food chain, and alters the community structure of marine ecosystems, and their ability to provide ecosystem services.
To maintain fish stocks requires healthily functioning ecosystems, and if this is to be achieved there needs to be robust legal enforcement, clear management and policy paths, implementation of sustainability indicators, incentives not to fish, strong governance, international cooperation, climate change mitigation, pollution prevention, waste minimisation and education. This includes very much conserving sharks.
Camera, Lights, Olfaction
One year ago I watched an excellent documentary following the band The National, Mistaken For Strangers, it was filmed with small hand-held cameras and edited, for the most, in a back bedroom. I realised I could attempt a similar endeavour - make a film about sharks, of which I have a life-long fascination. Of course, the subject matter and the tone of my film would be very different. Mistaken For Strangers
ascendance, and contains humour, pathos, and occasional Spinal Tap-style rock ’n’ roll antics. The journey for chondrichthyes, the cartilaginous fishes, and more specifically the Elasmobranchs - sharks, rays, skates, and sawfish – has been less amusing. After more than 400 million years (Dr. Samuel Gruber refers to them as “the lords of time”) the persistence of many of these species was looking less than certain.
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