Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Manafort will no longer take on Republican convention role

An unexpected sight to behold: Ted Cruz working bipartisan deals

Narrative of Trump snoozing in court takes hold — much to his annoyance

No, Apple, people do not want tech to crush everything in its path 

The urgent air defense lessons of April 16 

Are smartphones destroying childhood? It’s complicated.

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

Social Security has to be fixed. But you still need your own savings.

Middle East conflict live updates: Israel renews fight in north Gaza, advances on Rafah in south

Why Spain will recognize a Palestinian state

Far-right German party threat to democracy so can be spied on, says court

Mistakes pile up, leaving the Nationals with a 3-2 loss at Fenway Park

The Wizards will pick second in the NBA draft. Here’s whom they could take.

Eighth-inning decision burns the Nats in a 4-2 loss to the Red Sox

U.S.-China talks on AI risks set to begin in Geneva

Fooled by AI? These firms sell deepfake detection that’s ‘REAL 100%.’ 

Apple apologizes for iPad ad after blowback 

Find your Westminster show dog name: You may be a CH Lolly’s Marble Tuxedo MX

Northern lights glow over Switzerland

Pete Buttigieg’s view from the middle seat

The case for eating at Italian gas stations

Cruise ship drags dead whale into New York, prompting investigation

Carolyn Hax: What’s the real cost of going halfsies on a modest engagement ring?

Ask Amy: Dad hurt by daughter publicly reconnecting with her biological family

Miss Manners: Should I accept offered seat swaps when I’m flying for free?

I used to dismiss my mom’s advice. Then I found a note she wrote before she died.  

Photos of his mom at lunch are a balm people didn’t know they needed

Dog hit by car loses leg, is adopted by firefighter who helped her

Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen testifies about Stormy Daniels, Trump in hush money case

Reporting on Earth’s changing climate and the search for solutions

See more coverage in your recommendations

Climate & environment

The Climate Coach newsletter

Climate alerts

Mark Kirkland

In recent years, governments around the world have rallied to save sharks. Many of the top ocean predators are at risk vanishing for good from the oceans because of overfishing.

But a new study has come to a troubling conclusion: Many of those efforts aren’t doing enough to stop sharks from dying.

Between 2012 and 2019, the number of sharks killed by fishing increased from at least 76 million a year to 80 million even as regulations were being put in place, a finding that is likely to stoke fears about the loss of an apex fish that is vital to the health of marine ecosystems on which millions of people depend for food.

“They are a canary in the coal mine,” said Darcy Bradley, an ocean scientist at the nonprofit Nature Conservancy and adjunct faculty at the University of California at Santa Barbara who co-wrote the study published Thursday in the journal Science.

“They are an indicator species that’s going to let us know if something is problematic within our ecosystems,” she added.

The good news, according to the researchers, is that they have spotted some regulations that do work to protect the top predators. But time is running out to implement them given that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982221011982" target=_blank>a third </a>of all sharks, rays and related species are at risk of extinction.

“We’re glad we’re finding this out now because sharks don’t have much time.” said Boris Worm, a conservation biologist at Dalhousie University in Canada who co-wrote the study.

Wilfredo Lee

For years, fishing boats focused on harvesting just one part of a shark — with gruesome results.

After hoisting a shark aboard, many fishers would chop off the fins and dump the rest of the body overboard to die. Those flat appendages fetch a high price since they serve as the key ingredient in an Asian delicacy called <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/distaste-widening-for-sharks-fin-soup/2011/05/18/AG3txgJH_story.html" target="_blank">shark fin soup</a>.

In response, more than 90 countries and overseas territories had put in place restrictions on chopping off the appendages — a practice called finning — as of 2022, requiring fishers to bring the whole fish ashore. The United States, for instance, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/12/15/shark-fin-ban-us/" target=_blank>banned the sale of shark fins</a> that year.

But to see how effective those regulations were at reducing shark mortality, Bradley, Worm and their colleagues examined shark catches over an eight-year span when many finning regulations were put in place, tracking the fate of an estimated 1.1 billion sharks caught globally.

Over this period, shark mortality increased along coasts but decreased in the open ocean. Altogether, the team found that restrictions on finning alone were ineffective at reducing overall shark mortality. In fact, the rules may have at times even contributed to more sharks dying by incentivizing fishers to bring whole sharks — fins intact — to shore and sell the meat and cartilage in addition to the fins.

“I find it plausible that banning or further regulating shark finning in some places, by itself, would not necessarily lead to widespread declines in fisheries-related shark mortality,” said Catherine Macdonald, director of the Shark Research and Conservation Program at the University of Miami, who was not involved in the study.

“Shark fisheries have complex social, economic, and environmental drivers beyond those associated with trade in fins,” she added.

Among the hot spots for shark mortality are<b> </b>Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, Mauritania and Somalia, though it is a global appetite for shark products that is fueling their decline, according to the research team.

Indeed, shark meat is showing up in food without diners knowing it. Researchers previously found spiny dogfish, a threatened shark species, in about<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/world/europe/uk-fish-and-chips-shark.html" target=_blank> 90 percent of samples</a> from fish-and-chips takeout spots in southern England.

“Shark meat has become a little bit of the mystery meat in seafood,” Bradley said.

There are other reasons to ban finning, given that the fishing practice is viewed by many as wasteful and cruel.

“The conclusion is that these regulations did not result in a reduction in catches of sharks,” Colin Simpfendorfer, a shark scientist at James Cook University in Australia not involved in the most recent study, wrote in an email. “This should not be a surprise because these regulations are about animal welfare and full utilisation of catches.”

Isaac Lawrence

When it comes to reducing overall shark mortality, there is good news: Though imperfect, entire bans on shark fishing — not just finning — over large swaths of ocean were the best regulations the group assessed, reducing mortality by nearly 40 percent compared with places without shark fishing prohibitions.

The team also found that the more accountable a government is to its citizens, as assessed by the World Bank, the fewer sharks died as a result of fishing in its waters.

“It’s not an intractable problem,” Worm said. “It’s something that’s very fixable. It’s very doable.”

According to the researchers, among the places protecting the predators well with shark sanctuaries are the Maldives and the Bahamas, where shark-filled waters are propping up a thriving dive tourism industry.

Other shark havens including the Pacific island nation of Palau and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument managed by the United States. There is even a bright spot in Indonesia, off the archipelago of Raja Ampat.

When Worm first swam off Raja Ampat in 2010, he “hardly saw any sharks.” But when he returned nine years later after local efforts to stop poaching and protect sharks, “there were sharks on pretty much every dive.”

“It was some of the most glorious and most hopeful diving I’ve ever done,” he said.

Columbia University, BA in economics and political science

Columbia University, MA in science journalism

Dino Grandoni is a reporter covering wildlife, biodiversity and other climate and environmental issues. He is the author of Animalia, a column exploring the strange and fascinating world of animals.

Dino Grandoni

Why a third of all sharks are swimming toward extinction, despite efforts to save them

the-washington-post

Dorsal fin of the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus). Isle of Coll, Scotland.

VWPics via AP Images

A photo of a shark swimming in water with its fin protruding above the water's surface with the headline: One-third of all sharks are swimming toward extinction, despite efforts to save them

Mark Kirkland/VWPics/AP

The Washington Post

One-third of all sharks are swimming toward extinction, despite efforts to save them

Climate

Weather

Climate Solutions

Animals

Climate Lab

Green Living

Environment

washpost

prism://prism.query/site,/climate-environment/environment&limit=20

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/climate-environment&limit=20

Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter and get advice for life on our changing planet, in your inbox every Tuesday.