NOAA wants to stop shark overfishing

Washington -- The U.S. government has announced a new rule designed to boost the number of sandbar and porbeagle sharks, along with other large coastal sharks.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service said
the rule significantly lowers the fishing quotas for such species.

The new shark regulations become effective July 24.

"Our recent stock assessments show we need to take strong conservation measures to stop overfishing of sandbar and other sharks to allow these species to rebuild," said Jim Balsiger, acting assistant administrator for NOAA's Fisheries Service. "These sharks, like many sharks, mature late, grow slowly and produce few young, making them particularly vulnerable to fishing pressure."

The rule also requires all sharks to be offloaded at the dock with all fins naturally attached. That's designed to improve enforcement against shark finning, in which fishermen remove the highly valuable fins from sharks at sea and discard the carcasses overboard.

The new rule, to be published in the Federal Register Tuesday, establishes a separate sandbar shark annual commercial quota of 87.9 metric tons. The previous sandbar quota was 1,017 metric tons.

The regulation prohibits recreational shark fishermen from landing sandbar or silky sharks.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.