New York, New York (May 5, 2007 14:48 EST) The Shark Research Institute created the Peter Benchley Shark Conservation Awards to ensure continuation of his conservation efforts on behalf of sharks. On May 8, 2007, the Awards will be presented in three categories: media, scientific research and advocacy. The recipients are Sharkwater, a documentary film; and Ecocean, a computer program which utilizes the body patterns of whale sharks to catalogue and track the global movements of individual animals. Sonja Fordham is receiving the award for her outstanding efforts as an advocate for shark conservation at national and international forums.


Read full article: ''Peter Benchley Shark Conservation' Awards Given Out'

Queensland, Australia (May 1, 2007 16:57 EST) Manta rays are hard to miss —big, black and stretching up to seven metres wide, but scientists are still in the dark about the world's largest ray.

A team of UQ scientists is joining forces with industry and government partners to launch the most comprehensive study of manta rays yet.

Project Manta will detail manta ray populations, their behaviours, feeding patterns, movements, migrations using observations and satellite imagery and will identify individuals via DNA and photographic analysis.


Read full article: 'Aussie Scientists Target Manta Ray Mysteries'

Shark conservationists are outraged by the killing of at least one and possibly two protected great whites on the southern Cape Coast, apparently during a fishing competition.

The competition was supposed to be a "catch-and-release" event, but an official from the Fransmanshoek Conservancy later found three dead sharks lying on the rocks.


Read full article: 'Dead sharks found after fishing contest'

By: DENNIS BUECKERT

OTTAWA (CP) - The biggest fish in Canadian waters is close to disappearing from the West Coast because of a deliberate eradication program instituted by the federal government.

Fishermen used to regularly encounter the basking shark, which can reach the length of a city bus, but in the past decade there have been only six sightings.

"The population has almost certainly declined by more than 90 per cent," Jeffrey Hutchings, chairman of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, said in an interview Monday.


Read full article: 'Biggest fish in Canadian waters endangered'

Bogota, Colombia (Apr 29, 2007 09:05 EST) When Colombian naval officials seized two tonnes of shark fins in a boat off the Pacific coast last week, they threw a spotlight on a huge black market serving hungry Asian markets which is blamed for pushing some species toward extinction.

Asian consumers prize the fins for use in making status-symbol soups -- and one pound (450 grams) of fin can fetch 300 dollars. Some shark-fin soups go for as much as 90 dollars a bowl in the countries where the dish is most popular: Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.

The Colombian-flagged vessel was arrested 18 nautical miles from Malpelo island, a UNESCO natural world heritage site off Colombia's Pacific coastline.


Read full article: 'Demand for Shark Fins Threatening Colombian Species'

A species of deadly shark has become so numerous in Australia that locals can catch them by dangling a line from apartment balconies and back gardens.

Bull sharks are so prevalent in the creeks and canals of the Gold Coast in Queensland that "high-rise hunters" are snaring three or four a night as they watch television, play pool and drink beer.

Two swimmers in the Gold Coast's brackish canals were killed by the sharks in 2003 and a young woman was mauled to death off nearby Stradbroke Island last year.


Read full article: ' Shark fishermen who don't leave the garden'

Miami, Florida (Apr 23, 2007 15:00 EST) Despite regulations by some countries to protect the behemoth basking shark from further population declines, a new study published in the current on-line edition of Animal Conservation reports that the world’s second largest fish is still being killed for its high-priced fins.

Scientists from the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University and the Pew Institute for Ocean Science at the University of Miami, both in Florida, and from England’s Imperial College and Durham University used a novel, streamlined DNA analysis method to document the presence of fins from basking sharks in the Hong Kong and Japanese fin markets, and even in the USA where this species has been completely protected by fishery regulations since 1997.


Read full article: 'Illegal Trade In Fins Of Endangered Basking Sharks'

By Tom Ragan
Sentinel staff writer

MONTEREY — A team of employees from the Monterey Bay Aquarium will fly into San Diego this afternoon, board a private plane to Mazatlan on Saturday morning, then take a boat into the Gulf of California — known in Mexico as the Sea of Cortez.

There, they'll search the waters for a small floating electronic tag that popped off a male great white shark they released into Monterey Bay more than three months ago.


Read full article: 'Search begins for great white shark's electronic tag'

Legal action to save an endangered shark could, if successful, put further restrictions on the fishing fraternity, writes Wendy Frew.

GREATER restrictions on commercial fishing, including fishing bans on some parts of the NSW coast, may have to be enforced if legal action aimed at protecting the grey nurse shark is successful.

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW began proceedings in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal yesterday challenging a decision by the Federal Government last year to declare the Ocean Trap and Line Fishery a wildlife trade operation.




Read full article: 'How anglers are killing the grey nurse shark'

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh (Apr 11, 2007 17:18 EST) A rare species of fish, which looks like a shark, was caught from deep sea around 20-25 kilometers south of St. Martin's Island yesterday. It has been kept at the under-construction Panowa Bay Park museum of at Cox's Bazar.

Marine biologist Raguib Uddin Ahmed at the museum said he spotted the rare fish at Cox's Bazar fish landing station and took it from fishermen.





Read full article: 'Rare Shark Ray Snagged by Bangladesh Fisherman'

Queensland, Australia (Apr 10, 2007 13:43 EST) UQ researchers have shown that stingrays, once thought to be colour-blind, may be capable of seeing in colour.

They have shown that the blue-spotted maskray, a common stingray in Moreton Bay, has all the physical components necessary for colour vision.

Susan Theiss, a Californian PhD student working on the project, said seeing in colour could help rays find mates, detect prey and avoid predators.



Read full article: 'Stingrays and Sharks May See in Color'

It's a beautiful, benign - and endangered - relative of the great white. So why isn't more being done to stop fishermen going after the porbeagle?
By Peter Marren
Published: 05 April 2007

Three years ago a Cornish fisherman had a rare stroke of luck. Off the coast of the county, on his 40-foot fishing boat The Prevail, he encountered a large shoal of sharks. Their streamlined, spindle-shaped bodies and characteristic pointed noses told him this was the porbeagle, an ocean-going, cold-water relative of the great white shark.

Read full article: ' Endangered shark under attack from Cornish fishermen'

Marine predators are on the verge of extinction, but the fishing industry still rips the environment to shreds with impunity

George Monbiot
Tuesday April 3, 2007

If these animals lived on land there would be a global outcry. But the great beasts roaming the savannahs of the open seas summon no such support. Big sharks, giant tuna, marlin and swordfish should have the conservation status of the giant panda or the snow leopard. Yet still we believe it is acceptable for fishmongers to sell them and celebrity chefs to teach us how to cook them.

Read full article: 'Sharks deserve the conservation status we give to the giant panda'

Wellington, New Zealand (Apr 2, 2007 13:58 EST) White pointer sharks will now be fully protected within the 200 nautical miles of water around New Zealand, and from fishing by New Zealand-flagged boats further afield, the Ministers of Conservation and Fisheries announced today.

Read full article: 'Full Protection for Great White Sharks Starts Today off Kiwi Coast'

Calamba City, The Philippines (Apr 1, 2007 12:42 EST) Personnel of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) arrested 10 Vietnamese fishermen who were caught poaching within the Philippine waters off an island in Balabac, Palawan, aboard a large fishing vessel over the weekend.

Read full article: 'Ten Vietnamese Fishermen 'Caught in the Act' of Shark Finning off Palawan'