Cape Town - Despite South Africa being rated in the top five countries for protecting sharks, rays, skates, and sawfish species (collectively known as elasmobranchs), a third are threatened by extinction.
Now marine and conservation researchers say local marine protected areas (MPAs) provide the animals with a refuge from daily harm.
SANParks marine biologist Alison Kock said fishing was regarded as the most significant threat to shark and ray populations in South Africa.
Human activities such as coastal development, bottom trawling, aquaculture and mining, damaged their habitats and made then less suitable or entirely unsuitable for living.
With that in mind, Kock said, MPAs, such as the Table Mountain National Park, provided a haven for sharks and rays to thrive because they excluded many activities that threatened the species.
SANParks said an example was the puffadder shysharks that were often caught unintentionally (bycatch) by several fisheries and then discarded.
However, they thrived when inside the Table Mountain National Park MPA.
“Several species of catsharks, rays and skates, many of which are endemic to southern Africa, make up a large portion of the bycatch in commercial fisheries,” said the South African Elasmobranch
Monitoring group.
Although MPAs provided some safety for the species, Kock said South Africa’s National Plan of Action for Sharks, which gave the government and its partners a road map of where to focus their efforts, had recently undergone a review and needed to be updated.
“It needs to prioritise actions and set clear indicators that can be measured. Strengthening fishing regulations, addressing illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing while ensuring increased monitoring and compliance with existing regulations are required to guarantee shark and ray catches are sustainable,” said Kock.
Marine Dynamics senior white shark biologist Alison Towner also highlighted some positive aspects achieved from the National Plan of Action for South Africa that was last updated for sharks in 2013. It formed part of the larger Biodiversity Management Plan.
Towner said South Africa had new innovative 3D printed shark fins, and had achieved a reduction of bycatch in the pelagic longline fishery, camera Installations on vessels and size limits on shark species caught, world-class species assessments and the Shark Identification Guide and Shark Book.