Fisheries and conservation assessment of sharks in Pacific Panama

Abstract

In Panama, shark fisheries were initially developed in the 1980s and progressively increased in production in the 1990s mainly due to the high demand for shark fins and meat from the international Asian market. Since then, and despite the exploitation rate (average 3,514 t year–1) and endangered status of some species, shark fisheries have seldom been studied, and official statistics are general or incomplete and not suitable for the development of appropriate conservation and management strategies. To understand the dynamics of shark fisheries in Panama, field surveys were conducted between 2007 and 2009 at several landing ports of small‐scale and industrial fisheries, at fish processing plants and on‐board fishing vessels in Pacific Panama, where most of the fishing vessels of the country operate. In general, it was found that the artisanal and industrial fisheries of the Pacific coast of Panama regularly exploit at least 18 species of sharks, which are also being exploited by neighbouring countries in the eastern Pacific, suggesting the importance of coordinated conservation initiatives across the multiple jurisdictions. A large number of the individuals caught were immature, implying a certain level of impact on recruitment rates. This pattern was particularly evident in species such as Sphyrna lewini, for which immature individuals represented at least 99% and 63% of the total catch by small‐scale and industrial fisheries, respectively. Catch per unit of effort analyses showed that Carcharhinus and Sphyrna species were the most exploited (representing ~80% of the catches) by industrial fisheries in Panama between 2006 and 2009, suggesting that fishery management should provide special attention to these groups. It is expected that the information presented here provides a baseline to develop new regulations, including the implementation of annual quotas and fishing seasons and the protection of nursery areas, for the long‐term sustainability and conservation of sharks in Panama.

Genetic population dynamics of the critically endangered scalloped hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini) in the Eastern Tropical Pacific

“…High connectivity and shared haplotypes between the Galápagos aggregation and coastal nurseries, as well as telemetry tracking data showing females from the Galápagos traveling to coastal Panama and back (P. Salinas de León, unpublished), however, indicate that parturition in these areas is possible. Although sample sizes analyzed in this study were the largest from the ETP to date, the number of sharks present in the aggregations and nursery sites is not known but is likely to be large based on the high frequency of YOY sharks found in artisanal markets (Guzman et al, 2020 ; O'Bryhim et al, 2021 ). It is possible, therefore, that the failure to find parent‐offspring pairs in our study is a result of insufficient sampling of YOY sharks.…”

First estimates of population size and home range of Caribbean reef and nurse sharks using photo-identification and BRUVS

“…Over the past decade shark conservation has become a global priority (Ormond et al, 2017;Daly et al, 2018;Birkmanis et al, 2020) due to the substantial decline in some shark populations (Graham et al, 2010;Worm et al, 2013;Dulvy et al, 2014;Roff et al, 2018;Pacoureau et al, 2021), including specifically in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea (Ward-Paige et al, 2010;Dwyer et al, 2020;MacNeil et al, 2020) as the result of intense overexploitation and other human activities, such as habitat degradation (Baum et al, 2003;Pikitch et al, 2006;Jennings et al, 2008;Heupel et al, 2009;Guzman et al, 2020). In response many nations have implemented measures such as fishing bans, quotas and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in order to reduce the impact of fishing on local reef shark populations (Gallagher et al, 2017;Ward-Paige, 2017;Guzman et al, 2020). The benefits of these measures has however been highly variable and depended on population parameters such as population size and home range (Ormond and Gore, 2005;Speed et al, 2010;Bond et al, 2012;Dwyer et al, 2020).…”

Two thirds of species in a global shark fin trade hub are threatened with extinction: Conservation potential of international trade regulations for coastal sharks

“…Unsustainable fishing is the immediate cause of the threatened status of many chondrichthyans (“proximate threat”), but the drivers of unsustainable fishing (“ultimate threats”) are complex. Chondrichthyans can be caught in a variety of fishing gear types (primarily longline, gillnet, and trawls), incidentally or targeted, in fisheries from industrial to artisanal scale (Thorpe & Frierson, 2009; Gilman et al., 2016; Appleyard et al., 2018; Guzman et al., 2020). Chondrichthyan products range in market value from relatively inexpensive meat for local consumption to high‐value export products, such as dried fins (Dell'Apa et al., 2014).…”