Canada counts its sharks but is fishery viable? - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Canada counts its sharks but is fishery viable?
Sun Aug 5, 2007 7:06PM EDT

By Ed Stoddard

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (Reuters) - The shark stares with
glassy eyes from a restaurant display case on the Halifax
waterfront, its throat stained with dried blood.

The creature on ice is a porbeagle shark, a species that
was once fished to the brink of extinction in the frigid
waters off Atlantic Canada during the 1960s.

Federal fisheries officials don't want to make that mistake
again, and so marine biologists are crunching data from
Canada's first "census" of a shark population with the
porbeagle as its focus.

The stakes are high as sharks globally are threatened by
exploitation for their meat and fins. Some conservationists
say Canada's porbeagle fishery should be closed though
government scientists maintain it appears sustainable at
current levels.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0324175820070805