Meeting #9 Deep Sea Skaters & The Shark Meat Trade
We had the privilege of hosting two incredible speakers this week, Colette Appert and Dr. Ana Barbosa Martins, who shared a bit about their research and experiences in the field. Let's dive right in and recap the highlights from our meeting.
Colette Appert - Deep Sea Skates
Our first speaker, Colette Appert, hails from the University of Tasmania and specializes in studying deep sea skates. Colette's research examines the physiology and stress responses of bycaught deep sea skates. Here's what we learned:
Colette Appert
Our first speaker, Colette Appert, hails from the University of Tasmania and specializes in studying deep sea skates. Colette's research examines the physiology and stress responses of bycaught deep sea skates. Here's what we learned:
Deep Sea Skate Bycatch: Colette Appert highlighted that deep-sea skates, specifically sandpaper skates, comprise a large portion of the bycatch from the Patagonian toothfish fishery and that we know very little about them.
PSAT Data: Colette uses PSAT (Pop-up Satellite Archival Tag) data to quantify mortality in these skates. Remarkably, 100% of the data from these tags were transmitted from the high-seas fishing operations when they detached, which is amazing considering the massive waves and cloud cover in these areas that could potentially block data transmission.
Colette's work sheds light on the often-overlooked consequences of deep-sea fishing and the importance of sustainable practices in preserving these remarkable creatures.
Dr. Ana Barbosa Martins
Navigating the Complex World of Shark Meat Trade
Our second speaker, Dr. Ana Barbosa Martins, took us on a journey through the intricate world of the shark meat trade. Ana's presentation highlighted several key aspects of her work:
Shark Meat Trade: Ana delved into the history of shark meat consumption and the primary threat to sharks: overfishing. She underscored that overfishing is the leading cause of elasmobranch population declines and discussed the reasons people continue to fish for sharks (which is more than just the fins…)
Shark Meat Market: Ana highlighted the little-discussed but substantial shark meat market. While the shark fin market has declined in recent years, the shark meat trade remains substantial, both in volume and value.
3. Current Project: Ana is currently working on a large multi-cultural project spanning 44 different countries to help shed some light on the shark meat trade. Currently, we have very little accurate information on the elasmobranch species that are being caught and sold due to a combo of issues like mislabeling, the lack of centralized data, using umbrella names like "Flake" and non-specific commodity codes (ei. shark (frozen), shark (fresh), ray (frozen), ray (fresh)). This complicates efforts to track shark and ray species in trade accurately. Check out this National Geographic article that explains a bit more about this project.
