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Good news for biodiversity: Cites, the Convention which regulates international trade in endangered plants and animals, has just adopted measures for the first time in favor of sharks, these large cartilaginous fish which are so frightening to humans, wrongly.
« This is very good news, let’s get excited! For the first time, finally, we take into account sharks and their importance for the ocean and for us. The oceanographer François Sarano, president of the Longitude 181 association, which campaigns for the preservation of the oceans, welcomes the historic decision adopted on November 25 by Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. of extinction.
But it is only trade that will be regulated, not fishing. “ Sharks are much fished for their fins, recalls François Sarano. This fishery is terrible because the shark is brought back alive on board the boat, its fins are cut off, it is amputated, it is mutilated and it is thrown back into the water alive. Obviously, without a fin, it will die at the bottom of the ocean. “All this just to make the soup taste good…
Too much peach, fewer births
It is estimated that around 100 million sharks are caught each year. This is twice as much as would be needed to enable generational renewal. “ Sharks are extremely fragile, because like us humans, and mammals, they have very few young and often late sexual maturity; they can only reproduce when they are 5, 10 or even 25 years old, so they have very few young. And so, very quickly, if there is a force of fishing or predation on the large adults, the populations collapse and renewal quickly becomes impossible. “, emphasizes François Sarano.
However, threatened sharks do not threaten anyone, as François Sarano has shown in films or in his latest book, In the name of sharks (Editions Actes Sud), winner of the 30 Million friends prize, “ the Goncourt of animals “. A scuba diver, he swims with the great white shark, one of the 500 species of sharks, reputed to be the most dangerous.
Swim with sharks
« When all of a sudden, he welcomes you, he offers you a moment, him the wild animal. He teaches you a great lesson. He says : “Oh, although it’s very difficult to understand each other, we always manage to find the right distance to live in peace”. Swimming with them is not risky! It is a moment of tremendous peace, of serenity, of absolute happiness to be next to those who have been called ”Sea teeth”. It’s a joy! » Happiness is in the ocean.
“It’s still scary, Jawsnon ? »
Of course, Steven Spielberg’s film, released in 1975, about a great white shark that kills vacationers, did sharks harm, because it was taken at face value, as if we believed in zombies after watching a zombie movie. First, all sharks are not carnivorous: the whale shark, for example, the largest fish in the world, only feeds on microscopic plankton. Then, attacks on humans by sharks are very rare, and very rarely fatal: less than four deaths per year. In comparison, in the world, there are 40 deaths by drowning per hour! The surfers attacked have often made the mistake of venturing into the predation zone, hunting the shark, which would bite out of curiosity, before moving away. Human flesh is not really to his liking, and we understand that.