With this legislation, sponsored by the Guam Senate\u2019s Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz, the Pacific islands continue to lead the world in the fight for shark conservation. It now moves to Governor Eddie Baza Calvo for his signature.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore and more, we see the islands of the Pacific stand tall against commercial fishing fleets that are depleting shark populations,\u201d said Matt Rand, director of Global Shark Conservation for the Pew Environment Group. \u201cPacific island leadership is helping these fish, threatened by the fin trade, to keep their place as apex predators in the ocean food chain. Guam, a major fishing hub, now joins other Pacific Ocean voices in support of shark conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Worldwide, up to 73 million sharks are killed every year primarily for their fins, which are valued for their use in shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy. As a result, 30 percent of the world\u2019s species are threatened or near-threatened with extinction. For an additional 47 per cent of species, scientists lack sufficient data to properly assess their population status.<\/p>\n
The impact of the shark fin trade on Guam\u2019s waters was recently documented by University of Guam Associate Professor of Fisheries Dr. Jenny McIlwain. At a legislative hearing, Professor McIlwain testified that she found four times as many sharks off Fiji and northwest Australia than she did in Guam\u2019s waters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fin trade has devastated too many shark populations, even though many studies have shown that these animals are worth far more alive as a tourist draw than dead,\u201d concluded Rand. \u201cWe must stop this wasteful fishing practice before it is too late.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With this legislation, sponsored by the Guam Senate\u2019s Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz, the Pacific islands continue to lead the world in the fight for shark conservation. It now moves to Governor Eddie Baza Calvo for his signature. \u201cMore and more, we see the islands of the Pacific stand tall against commercial fishing fleets that are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-3823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3823"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=3823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}