The Shark Alliance was formed in 2006 in an attempt to streamline the efforts of NGOs involved in shark conservation. The Alliance is able to utilize the manpower, resources, and combined knowledge of its member organizations to more effectively lobby for sustainable European and global shark fishing limits. Members of the Shark Alliance include The Shark Trust, the European Elasmobranch Association, and The Ocean Concervancy, among others.
In its own words:
The Shark Alliance is a not-for-profit coalition of non-governmental organizations dedicated to restoring and conserving shark populations by improving European fishing policy. Because of the influence of Europe in global fisheries and the importance of sharks in ocean ecosystems, these efforts have the potential to enhance the health of the marine environment in Europe and around the world.
The mission of the Shark Alliance is two-fold: To close loopholes in European policy regarding the wasteful and unsustainable practice of shark finning; To secure responsible, science-based shark fishing limits for long-term sustainability and ecosystem health.
Sharks have evolved over 400 million years and play a critical role in ocean ecosystems. In common with land predators such as lions and wolves, sharks keep other marine populations in check and help maintain the balance of life in the sea. Today, primarily because of overfishing sharks are among the oceans’ most threatened animals. Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year, either intentionally or as bycatch in commercial and recreational fisheries. Ongoing assessment of the status of European sharks (and closely-related rays) by the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) has led to the classification of roughly one third of evaluated species as threatened (either Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable), with another 16 per cent at risk of becoming so in the near future. Sharks generally grow slowly, mature late and produce few young. Shark populations are therefore especially vulnerable to overexploitation and slow to recover once depleted. The loss of these important predators is predicted to have negative effects on many other species in the sea. Unfortunately, however, misinformation and fear all too often impede the public support required to ensure sharks receive management priority and conservation actions. Unlike many countries that fail to conserve sharks, Europe does not lack the resources to restrict fishing. Despite immediate threats facing sharks there are few European limits on shark fishing, and quotas are routinely set far in excess of actual catches. In 2003, the EU adopted a ban on shark finning (the wasteful practice of slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the carcass at sea), but at the same time allowed glaring loopholes that render the ban all but meaningless. For instance, shark fishermen are allowed to land shark carcasses and fins separately, making it all but impossible to tell how many sharks have been processed on board and how many were subjected to shark finning. Meanwhile, the fin to carcass ratio (the means of checking that the number of fins corresponds to the number of carcasses – after sea processing – is within the ban’s limits) is the highest and therefore the most lenient in the world. Europe is home to the some of the world’s largest fishing fleets while its powerful fisheries officials exert influence on international fishing restrictions in many regions of the globe. Poor European shark policies, therefore, pose threats not only to shark populations in European waters but also to those around the world. If fisheries are managed carefully, sharks can provide a steady source of food and recreation and help keep the oceans in balance. The Shark Alliance is dedicated to ensuring that these valuable yet vulnerable animals survive and thrive for the benefit of ocean ecosystems and the people that depend on them. Save buying products with payday loan
Filed under Sharks Organizations · Tagged with ability, action, age, Alliance, animal, assessment, Association, attempt, balance, balance of life, ban, benefit, board, bycatch, car, carcass, care, catch, cent, check, checking, Class, classification, Co, coalition, Concervancy, conservation, conservation action, Critically, day, ear, ecosystem, ecosystem health, effect, effort, elasmobranch, Endangered, Ensure, environment, ESP, EST, Europe, European, european fishing policy, european waters, excess, fear, fin, Finning, fins, fish, fisheries, fishermen, fishing, fishing fleet, fishing fleets, fit, fleet, food, form, future, gene, general, global fisheries, globe, Government, health, home, importance, Important, Improving, influence, information, instance, intention, International, IUCN, knowledge, lack, land, land predators, largest fish, life, life in the sea, line, loan, Lobby, loss, management, manpower, manpower resources, Marine, marine environment, marine populations, mean, member, million years, misinformation, mission, NGOs, number, ocean, ocean ecosystems, official, Ongoing, organization, overexploitation, overfishing, payday, policy, population, potential, power, practice, predators, priority, process, processing, product, public, rat, rate, ratio, ray, recreation, recreational fisheries, Red, region, responsible science, rest, risk, role, round, row, Save, Science, sea, serv, shark, Shark Alliance, shark conservation, Shark Finning, shark fish, shark fishing, shark populations, shark trust, Sharks, source, Species, spite, status, support, sustainability, system, Tens, term, term sustainability, The Shark Trust, third, threat, Threatened, time, today, Trust, tuna, Union, US, use, Vulnerable, waste, water, With, world, world conservation union, year
The South African based White Shark Trust is “a non-profit organization founded in 2002 to promote and conduct research, education and conservation projects on the endangered Great White Shark”
It is the brain child of Michael Scholl (founder and trustee) who has been conducting research on Great White Sharks since 1997.
The goals of the White Shark Trust are as follows:
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To establish a fund in the Republic of South Africa for the purpose of receiving grants and donations from international sources as well as sources within the Republic of South Africa;
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To manage and disburse such funds in the furtherance of the objectives of the Trust;
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To promote dialogue between various research, conservation, education and Government bodies concerned with management, research, conservation and education concerning the Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias);
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To assist in providing relevant advice on the management of the Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias);
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To obtain the support for the objectives of the White Shark Trust from local residents living around concentration hotspots for the Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), including Mossel Bay, Dyer Island / Gansbaai and False Bay in particular;
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To obtain the support for the objectives of the Trust from the established tourism industry involved with the Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) located at Mossel Bay, Dyer Island / Gansbaai and False Bay in particular;
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To ensure that effective action is taken in all matters affecting the welfare and preservation of the Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias);
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To promote educational opportunities for the general public, schools and the tourism industry;
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To conduct and support scientific research projects and field expeditions with regards to the Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias).”
In connection with other like-minded South African organizations, the work of the White Shark Trust is of primary importance in order to better understand the critical role that White Sharks play in balancing the marine environment. Without their joint efforts we are unable to identify the need for better shark protection.
Filed under Sharks Organizations · Tagged with action, advice, african organizations, age, brain, brain child, car, Carcharodon, cent, child, Co, concentration, Concern, connection, conservation, conservation education, conservation projects, dialogue, disburse, Don, Dye, Dyer Island, ear, edition, education, effect, effective action, effort, Endangered, Ensure, environment, EST, False Bay, field, field expeditions, fit, founder, fund, furtherance, Gansbaai, gene, general, goal, Government, government bodies, Great, great white shark, great white sharks, importance, industry, International, international sources, Join, Joint, land, management, management research, Marine, marine environment, matter, Michael Scholl, mind, Mossel Bay, need, non-profit organization, object, order, organization, part, preservation, project, protect, protection, public, purpose, rat, ratio, Red, relevant advice, Republic, republic of south africa, research, research education, reservation, role, round, sea, serv, shark, shark trust, Sharks, side, source, South Africa, stand, support, tour, tourism, tourism industry, Trust, trustee, US, welfare, White, white shark, White Shark Trust, white sharks, With, work
The dark markings indicate gene expression in the electrosensory organs in the head of an shark.
Gainsville, Florida (Feb 6 2006 18:53 EST) Sharks are known for their almost uncanny ability to detect electrical signals while hunting and navigating.
Now researchers have traced the origin of those electrosensory powers to the same type of embryonic cells that gives rise to many head and facial features in humans.
The discovery, reported by University of Florida scientists in the current edition of Evolution & Development, identifies neural crest cells, which are common in vertebrate development, as a source of sharks’ electrical ESP.
It also fortifies the idea that before our early ancestors emerged from the sea, they too had the ability to detect electric fields.
“Sharks have a network of electrosensory cells that allows them to hunt by detecting electrical signals generated by prey,” said Martin Cohn, a developmental biologist with the departments of zoology and anatomy and cell biology, and the UF Genetics Institute. “That doesn’t mean they can only detect electric fish. They can sense electricity generated by a muscle twitch, even if it’s the weak signal of a flounder buried under sand.”
Likewise, sharks are widely thought to use the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation, enabling them to swim in precise paths across large expanses of featureless ocean, Cohn said.
“If you think of this in the big picture of evolution of sensory systems, such as olfaction, hearing, vision and touch, this shows sharks took a pre-existing genetic program and used it to build yet another type of sensory system,” Cohn said.
UF and University of Louisiana researchers analyzed electroreceptor development in the embryos of the lesser spotted catshark, an animal that is largely motionless during the day and hunts at night, mainly in the seagrass beds of the eastern Atlantic Ocean.
Using molecular tests, scientists found two independent genetic markers of neural crest cells in the animal’s electricity-sensing organs. Analysis shows these cells migrate from the brain and travel into the developing shark’s head, creating the framework for the electrosensory system – a previously unknown function of a much-studied group of cells, according to Renata Freitas, a doctoral candidate in UF’s zoology department and first author of the paper.
The process mirrors the development of the lateral line that allows fish to mechanically sense their environment, and organs of the inner ear that enable people to keep their balance. But scientists suspect as human ancestors emerged from the sea, they discarded their lateral lines as well as their ability to sense electrical fields.
“Our fishy ancestors had the anatomy for it,” said James Albert, a former UF biologist who is now at the University of Louisiana. “You can imagine how valuable this system would be if you were aquatic, because water is so conductive. But it doesn’t work on land – air doesn’t conduct electricity as well. When it happens, it’s called a lightning bolt and you don’t need special receptors to sense it.”
All primitive animals with backbones could sense electricity, according to Michael Coates, an associate professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago. Mammals, reptiles and birds lost the sense over time, as did most fish alive today.
But in sharks and a few other species, such as sturgeons and lampreys, electrosensory capability endured.
“Most fish you see today have large eyes,” Coates said. “But sharks are predators that do not particularly rely on vision. If you see a hammerhead shark searching for flatfish, it moves its head back and forth, almost as if it were using a metal detector. Knowing that the electrosensory system may have developed with involvement of neural crest cells is valuable for people trying to reconstruct vertebrate evolution. It gives us further indication of how all of the various sensory systems come on line.”
But the idea that the neural crest truly is the source of the electrosensory system will raise eyebrows, scientists say.
“It’s a very interesting paper for two reasons,” said Glenn Northcutt, a distinguished professor of neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, and a leading expert in vertebrate neurobiology. “For the first time, someone has shown which molecules may be responsible for guiding the development of the receptors of the lateral line system. I think this will hold true and is a very important finding. But I’m skeptical about the claim the neural crest gives rise to electroreceptors. It still requires a definitive experiment, where the developing neural crest cells are marked with dye, the embryo develops and the dye clearly shows up in the electroreceptors.”
Dye tests are a classical way of mapping cell movements during development, and have been used to explore the origins of limbs and brain cells. In the current research, scientists used genetic markers to trace neural crest cells.
Filed under Save Sharks · Tagged with ability, action, aim, air, amp, anal, Analysis, anatomy, animal, Atlantic, author, balance, biologist, biology, bolt, bone, brain, Build, California, candidate, capability, car, catshark, cell, Chicago, claim, Class, Co, crest, day, department, detector, Development, developmental, developmental biologist, discovery, Don, Dye, ear, earth, eastern Atlantic Ocean, edition, electric fish, electrical field, electrical signals, electricity, electroreceptor, electrosensory, embryo, embryonic cells, environment, ESP, EST, Evolution, experiment, expert, expression, eye, fact, Feb, field, fin, finding, fish, fishy, flatfish, Florida, florida feb, florida scientists, form, framework, function, Gainsville, gel, gene, gene expression, genetic program, Genetics, genetics institute, Glenn, group, hammerhead, head, hearing, hold, hunting, idea, Important, indication, Institute, involvement, James Albert, land, lateral, lightning, line, Louisiana, louisiana researchers, Mammals, Martin Cohn, mean, metal, Michael Coates, molecular tests, movement, muscle, muscle twitch, navigation, need, Network, neural, neural crest cells, neurobiology, neuroscience, night, North, Northcutt, ocean, olfaction, organismal, organs, origin, paper, part, picture, power, predators, prey, process, professor, program, rat, rate, reason, Red, Renata Freitas, report, research, researcher, rest, rise, row, San Diego, sand, Science, sea, seagrass beds, sense, sensory system, sensory systems, shark, Sharks, Sharks Electric Sense, signal, someone, source, Species, system, time, today, touch, travel, type, University, university of louisiana, US, use, vertebrate, vertebrate development, vision, water, way, Wide, With, work, zoology
