|
In
mid-July, the Council Of Agriculture (COA) in Taiwan
announced a ban on the catching of whale sharks for the
remainder of this year as fishermen had already caught
this year’s quota of 60 whale sharks. This announcement
after only 6 months of fishing shows that the whale shark
fishery is indeed still very active. Last year the quota was filled after 10
months of fishing.
The
ban prohibits local fishermen from fishing for whale
sharks in local and international waters. They cannot
possess, sell or dispose of whale shark or whale shark
parts and are required to release any whale sharks they
catch, whether alive or dead.
 |
|
|
Whale shark
fishery in Taiwan.
Photo Press
Services |
There
has been a lot of international pressure on Taiwan to ban
the whale shark fishery altogether. Recently the Life
Conservation Association with the support of Co-Habit
submitted a Letter of Concern to the Taiwanese Government
in the hope of banning the trade. A ban was not agreed,
but the Government of Taiwan has reduced the quota for
whale sharks fished to 45 sharks in 2007 and 30 in 2008.
While the temporary closure of this fishery is welcome,
conservationists are concerned that it will have little
affect on the actual fishing activities and the number of
whale sharks harvested. These concerns stem from a number
of causes. Firstly, because it is thought that the bulk of
whale shark caught by Taiwanese boats never enters Taiwan
but goes directly to Japan and other markets. In fact very little whale shark (known as Tofu shark in
Taiwan) is consumed locally and as such, while
the Taiwanese are the distributors they are not the
consumers.
The
other concern is that there is still a lot of whale shark
meat entering the Taiwanese market illegally and without a
total ban it will be impossible to monitor the origin of
each piece of Tofu shark being traded. A recent report
from Traffic Asia points out that Taiwan traded more whale
shark meat with overseas markets than was legally caught. For example, in 2004 68.5 metric tonnes was traded in just two
fish markets while the total recorded as legally fished
was just 32.5 tonnes. This discrepancy would tend to
indicate a large amount of imported whale shark flesh,
however, the official records do not show any imports of
whale shark during the last five years. As such, it is debatable how increased monitoring will
affect the legal trade, let alone the illegal trade and
that which never even reaches these markets.
The
position of the government of Taiwan with respect to the
whale shark harvest is also rather curious as the tonnage
and value of whale shark traded is negligible compared to
the rest of Taiwan’s fishery; as the quotas are further
reduced so the value will likewise decline. Why then does
the Taiwanese Government continue to support a fishery
which attracts so much international disapproval?
For more
information visit:
the
Whale Shark bulletin
board
http://whaleshark.org and Traffic
http://www.traffic.org
|
