Thresher Conservation Debate

[FISHIONADO]

I recognize there are strong feelings on both sides but I'm interested to hear arguments for and against taking threshers, either pups or breeders. We should be able to disagree in a civil manner. I apologize for stirring the pot when I was defending a guy on another thread, I was sort of an ass. Owe some of you a cold beer on the water.

Definitely interested in seeing other sources of information. This is what I found when I first considered the topic.

NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/s...n_thresher.htm

Pacific Common Thresher Shark (Alopias vulpinus)

Sustainability Status

Biomass: Unknown; preliminary analyses of common thresher shark catch in the pelagic drift gillnet fishery operating off the U.S. West Coast indicated that the biomass in 2000 was above the biomass supporting the maximum sustainable yield (MSY).

Overfishing: Unknown; Preliminary analyses of common thresher shark catch and effort in the pelagic drift gillnet fishery operating off the U.S. West Coast indicated that the catch-per-unit-effort of thresher sharks was increasing in the late 1990s above historical lows experienced during the early 1990s. Thus, in the U.S. West Coast EEZ, it was estimated that the local population of common thresher shark was not experiencing overfishing at that time, and the population may have been rebuilding.

[FISHIONADO]

Maybe there is no debate on this subject? Someone mentioned in another thread that their friends were trying to get the DFG to change the rules on threshers. Anyone have the data they were using?

I'm interested because I have released threshers in the past because I thought they were endangered based on the opinions on all the fishing forums. But my own quick research says they are at sustainable levels in Southern California. Is it just an emotional thing or is there current scientific data to support "no take"? This is the same reason I fought the MLPA so strongly, I want regulations based on science and not emotion.

Peace all!

[dos ballenas]

check this out:

http://www.bloodydecks.com/forums/ca...ase-first.html

the current status of the population is unknown... but likely is at sustainable levels.

But, like Black Seabass, threshers are susceptible to overfishing.

Sharks are known to live for a long time. They are slow to grow, have very few babies, and don't reach reproductive maturity until about 4 years old. Harvesting young pups and large breeders are two things that could have a negative impact on their long term sustainability.

Thresher sharks are also known as ram ventilators, which means they have to be swimming forward in order to breath. This is a problem because many times they get hooked in their tails. Threshers like to hit their prey with their tails to stun them. This results in tail hooking and during the fight, the sharks are dragged backwards through the water. As a result, many sharks are fought to the point of exhaustion, and when released, some do not survive.

Many people feel that recreational sport fishing pressure on threshers has increased in recent years due to the sharing of current fishing reports on the internet, and the fact that thresher sharks are very easy to hook. The possible results from an increase in recreational fishing pressure have not been studied.

The are no regulations on sharks fishing currently. That means you can keep as many as you want, of all shape and sizes. That doesn't mean that you should.

There are many reasons why keeping threshers is controversial, and many reasons why some sort of regulation may be implemented. Most reasons are based on the biology and life history of the animal.

[FISHIONADO]

Great input, thanks. Do you have any idea what the major threats are to threshers and where kayak fishing ranks?

I've never targeted them, always figured I would take one if it was by-catch and drowned or was the right size for me to land alone.

[CurtyL]

my take is pretty simple. If I'm not eating it I'm not keeping it. I don't like T so I don't keep them. I do try and get my hooks back though.

[dgax65]

I wouldn't mind seeing more restrictive limits on thresher and mako. The only problem is that more restrictive limits on recreational anglers are pretty much pointless when there is long-lining going on just outside of our waters. Commercial long liners probably take more in a day than the entire yearly recreational catch. Its too bad mako aren't cute like dolphin. If they were, the PETA/Greenpeace/Sea Shepard douchebags would be all over it. Stop buying shark, tuna, swordfish, rockfish....from the market and convince all your friends and acquaintances to do likewise and maybe we wouldn't have to reduce the recreational take limits.

[FISHIONADO]

I understand not taking breeding females and especially pregnant females. What is the reason to not take pups? Not challenging the position, just curious so I understand the issue.

[GregAndrew]

The ram ventilation got me thinking about methods of successful release after a tail hook landing. Obviously Hobie guys could just pedal the fish around a little bit to force some water/air over its gills, but not so easy for us paddlers. I might try using my bait pump next time I have to deal with one in distress? Would that be too much water flow for the shark to get oxygen out of it? Using a 6v to a 500gpm bait pump.

[Regor]

Originally Posted by dos ballenas

The are no regulations on sharks fishing currently. That means you can keep as many as you want, of all shape and sizes. That doesn't mean that you should.

Oh yeah, there's a limit, better check your DFG, not that any of us in our yaks have much of a chance of going over :

"The bag limits for shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus), thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus), and blue shark (Prionace glauca) allow take of two fish per day with no size limit."

[Ohana]

FISHIONADO:

Thanks for starting this topic. It is definitely something worth having a good discussion about.

Having fished for Threshers for the last 10 years, I would say that the fishery from recreational fisherman pressure has increased due to the increase in number of boaters (especially in the middle of the last decade) and the relatively close inshore nature of the sharks has made them easy to target for a larger percentage of fisherman (no long travel using up expensive gas). I know that when I first started catch and release of T-sharks, you rarely heard about it on the local fishing boards, but as more people started posting the knowledge of this fishery, when was the optimum time to fish, techniques/locations, and the ease at catching them, it seemed like every spring everyone who had a boat was out trolling for T-sharks and were showing off their catch being weighed rather then releasing the sharks.

Does this have an impact on the fishery? Hard to say as removal of certain numbers may actually improve the health of the population as there is less competition for food/ decreased cannibalization increasing the recruitment size. But considering that T-sharks give birth to living young, their litter size is small (2 to 4 pups), and that they take between 7 and 13 years to reach sexual maturity would make them more vulnerable to overfishing then other large gamefish, such as marlin, swordfish, and white seabass which produce large number of eggs and mature at a faster rate. As off the Southern California coast it appears to be the T-shark pupping grounds, both newborn, juvenile, and adult sharks can be caught year round, resulting on a potential overfishing impact to all populations of growth stages of the T-shark.

Based on my observations the last 10 years and the fact that we humans lack certain levels of self control (i.e. how we got into the current economic mess ) ), I am for a limit on the number kept and setting the maximum size of 150 lbs that can be kept by recreational fisherman. I choose a maximum size as the idea is to increase survival of the breeding class and that a small/medium T-shark (<150 lbs) is plenty of good meat.

Please note that I am strong believer that recreational fisherman are low on the scale of threats to saltwater fish populations; habitat destruction, pollution, and commercial gillnet/longline fishing are far and away the biggest threats.

Thanks again for starting this topic and I look forward to reading other peoples responses.


Kevin

[FISHIONADO]

If anyone here supports slot limits maybe they could explain the benefit of releasing the smaller threshers. Is it because they are too easy to catch? Agree Kevin it's nice to see a civil discussion on this topic. I have a lightly supported opinion that threshers from SoCal are a sustainable resource based on the NOAA website, but I'll flip flop in light of compelling information.

I always refuse shark fin soup during biz travel to Asia. And chicken feet....

[wade]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJG7R...layer_embedded


The FDA states that shark meat has 60 times more mercury that should be ingested in a daily diet.
Women and children should NEVER consume the meat.


That makes three of us...






•

[chris138]

Aside from conservation and mercury levels, killing and eating any shark is extremely bad karma for those of us who spend a significant part of our lives in the marine foodchain. As kayak fisherman, I'm not sure we can make a claim to dominance of this ecological web. Ask any Hawaiian Moke... eat shark and one day the taxman will come to avenge his little cousins.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by FISHIONADO

If anyone here supports slot limits maybe they could explain the benefit of releasing the smaller threshers.

This is a mostly a repost from other threads from over the years but here's the idea..

Since so many more immature sharks are taken each year off So. Cal. then adults, more can be achieved by protecting pups then protecting adults.

Think about it this way: How many true adults Threshers over two hundred pounds or makos over five hundred pounds have you seen taken in So Cal?

Now contrast that to how many many immature sharks have you seen taken?

Simply put tens of thousands of immature sharks are taken off So.Cal. each year (last I checked it was close to 40 thousand commercial plus recreational landings) and the amount of breeding adults harvested is just a small fraction of the number.

Here is my one True Adult T shark I caught in the mid nineties



Big shark no doubt, but it's the only one of a handfull I have seen caught that size in two decades of fishing sharks here, and I have fished them them pretty hard, and know most of the big guns in the So.Cal. shark fishing community.

Where in contrast I have seen hundreds of immature T sharks taken as people catch them all the time.

Mako's it's even more dramatic. I've probably seen well over a thousand Makos boatside over the years but never seen a single one landed over 500 pounds. My friend Tom got one over a thousand, and my buddy Larry has maybe a few but he's taken commercial hook and line. That's it for close friends with true breeding makos.

Back to Ts... That big female of mine might of produced a few more litters of 2-4 pups a piece before she would of died of old age (they only live twenty years and produce maybe five litters) but, she would not of produced hundreds or thousands of pups.

So as follows I personally have seen more impact to the T shark populations numbers from taking pups then adults. I imagine that goes for pretty much everyone here as no kayaker to my knowledge has ever landed a fully mature T from a Kayak.

Tsharks in So Cal generally fall into either the sub adult category under 200 pounds and adults over 200. The subs hold tight to shore, school up and are super easy to target. The adults migrate up the coast further offshore, move in smaller groups and are a lot harder to find and target.

Back in the 80s T shark populations were in trouble because the gillnetters were wiping then out. A large one like the one in my pic above were and extremely rare catch back then because few were making it to adulthood.

They were targeting the subadults tight to shore essentially inshore with their nets and nailing them in huge numbers. So the DFG made them move their nets out to three miles, they still gillnet T-sharks they just can't fish the pups in tight to the beach any more.

They were not protecting adults with that move but the pups, and the result was a growth of their population numbers as a whole.

Since that law change then we have had an huge increase in Tshark population number. Now catches like the one in my pic above are now much more common place, which shows clearly that protecting pups benefits their population numbers.

The obvious conclusion is that if you protect the sub-adult pups from over exploitation you not only end up with more breeding adults, but the population numbers increase across the board. What I'm saying here is the old save the breeder argument is BS. You get more benefit from protecting pups, and releasing pups then protecting breeders, or telliung people to release breeders.

These sharks have no natural predators other then man, possibly white sharks, and killer whales, and whites and killers though they can eat them hardly ever do.

There is no reason that this shark:


Wouldn't grow up into one of these if released...
.....and eventually get much bigger then that.

That second shark may look big, but that male is just reaching breeding age kind of the equivalent in biology of a 10 inch Calico. I wouldn't of even taken it if it had not died on the line, as it cut my total T season that year down to thirty minutes.. (I only keep one a year)

Since we live in a shark nursery so we have an abundance of small easy to target sub-adult sharks both Mako and threshers. Pretty much every other fish we fish for has a size limit, most states have size limits on their sharks, but California does not.

Something like 95% of the sharks taken by recreational fishery in So.Cal are not of breeding age. If that was the case for Seabass, Calicos, Halibut or any other fish the DFG would instantly stop it. The only reason they do not when it comes to sharks is the commercial and business interests have lobbied to keep the pup fishery open. The commercials still target pups, even if they now have to do it further offshore and sportboats want to take any T sharks they hook on their party boats, so they both do not want the pup shark fishery closed down.

Imagine if we lived in a Marlin Nursery with an abundance of baby Marlin, would it make sense to take twenty or thirty pound Marlin and only release the adults? Of course it wouldn't. We are sport fisherman and we would know enough to protect our Marlin for the trophy big game fishery they supply as adults.

If commercials were harvesting those tiny Marlin in huge numbers would people be trying to get them protected? Sure they would.. but oddly you don't see people boycotting places that sell pup T sharks because no-one is aware of the issue.

Over the years a lot of misinformation has been pushed around on this subject. By a lot of self proclaimed Gurus, especially on the web. These guys pushed releasing breeders, not because a ton of them are taken each year, but purely because they were pretending they were experts and they did not want others bringing big sharks to the dock cause it took away from their internet shark expert fame. It's the old: if you can't catch big sharks, then bash others who can thing, but it was never based on conservation because so few adults were being taken, and the pups were the ones that actually needed protection.

I'm no Guru... I'm not going to tell anyone what they can and can not do. The little T shark catch above is legal no doubt but I will say that if the DFG is not going to regulate us properly, I think then we need to regulate ourselves.

When people ask me about fishing Tsharks: I tell them to only target sharks over 200 pounds. I usually won't even tell people how to target the inshore pups because I don't want them to get any more pressure then they already do.

For instance recently I had a guy who was trying to set a club line class record call me up. He wanted to take a ten to one.. fair enough. I knew they were thick at crystal cove and told him because I figured he'd only take one and keep it quite.

Next day they hooked six and landed one which he weighed in for a club record on the certified scale at the Balboa angling club. Naxt day there were a hundred boats at Crystal Cove trolling for pup T sharks. He didn't tell anyone but someone saw him hooked up and word got our after he weighed his record.

Adults are harder to target because they are constantly on the move. So I usually only tell people to target adults over 200 pounds, and to only keep the ones that die on the line.

Big T's over 200 often fight so hard they kill themselves in the process. Unlike pups that do not fight as hard, and release well, the adults will literally just beat themselves to death.

That big shark above at one point jumped three body lengths through the air, and also sounded at one point 1200 feet straight down. Nothing local fights as hard as an adult T shark, they are unbelievable fighters when they get big. Unfortunately that means they do die often on the line. So if you fish for them you not only need the right gear but you better have freezer space.

A 200+ T shark is the hardest fighting fish we have off Southern California, they fight much harder when they are big and muscled up then when they are juveniles and a big T easily outfights a Marlin of the same size. Archer says the only fish that outfights them as adults are Giant Bluefin. I've never caught a Giant Bluefin but I'd be inclined to agree with him on that one.

These are Southern California's true Big Game Trophy Fish, my take is to let them go when they are immature and then target them when they are big enough to put on the real show.

If the DFG would just put a size limit on them or, we could just get people to always release immature sharks we'd not only have an explosion in their numbers but we'd end up with the best Trophy T shark fishery on the planet.

For me that is worth releasing a few pups to achieve, and I have been pushing for a size limit for over a decade just for that reason.

I want more sharks and a better trophy sized adult shark fishery. That is something worth fighting for, and it's achievable if we just can get people to release their immature sharks..

Just my opinion though.

Jim

[FISHIONADO]

Thanks for the post Jim, I really appreciate discussing this because I'm honestly still trying to form my own informed opinion.

How about someone like me who never goes after fish bigger than I can catch on my kayak locally? I have no interest in 100lb fish or 200lb fish. I wouldn't be able to consume a 100lb+ fish in a reasonable manner, seems those should go to a fish market where they will get consumed quickly.

A smaller thresher would get fully respected, meaning it would get fully consumed.

I haven't taken one, and only had to release a couple. I don't care for shark myself but I've been prepared to consume one if it was by-catch and couldn't be released healthy.

[bmercury]

I personally would not keep any shark unless it died before I could release it. Sharks just reproduce too slowly and are too vulnerable to overfishing. Also because of the mercury content.

And if I did happen to kill a baby shark for some reason I wouldn't pose for pictures.

I would feel very bad about keeping a shark, but I feel bad about keeping any fish(except legal halibut, just too tasty for their own good!). Why? Because I know that there are people out there that keep EVERYTHING. I have seen the way people look at you when you throw back anything that is legal to keep.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by FISHIONADO

A smaller thresher would get fully respected, meaning it would get fully consumed. I haven't taken one, and only had to release a couple. I don't care for shark myself but I've been prepared to consume one if it was by-catch and couldn't be released healthy.

Well it's a given that fish should never be wasted, in fact it's law, but you still usually have a choice whether to keep it or not.

If we had lots of baby Marlin around would you be tempted to keep them?

Striped Marlin are good to eat. If you kept one it would probably not be wasted, but it is still better to let them go, because it's a better precedent for fishing in general. People do not let small Marlin go because they taste bad, people let them go because they want a healthy population of adults to fish for. People should release Ts for the same reason.

Sharks have always kind of got a bad rap as far as killing them goes, like it's no big deal to kill a shark or that it does not matter. When you kill a forty pound T it's just the same as killing a 400 pound T because if you think about it you'll quickly realize that if released that shark it would almost certainly grow to full size if not killed by man.

It's an adaption of mentality. If the majority of recreational fisherman just need to get that fact that we are the top predator of these sharks, that we are the only thing that kills them on a regular basis. Then perhaps they would realize that even killing the smallest T shark has a impact on the fishery, and if we just released those pups we'd have a lot more 400 lb T's around, and more pups and higher population numbers in general.

Jim

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by bmercury

If I did happen to kill a baby shark for some reason I wouldn't pose for pictures.

Yeah... well... posting pictures of small sharks definitely encourage others to take them because it makes it seem more commonplace or acceptable.

It's not about bragging but it's about cultivating a mentality. People do what they think it's cool to do. Right now some have convinced fisherman that there is nothing wrong with keeping small sharks. We just need to change that mentality because they (Tsharks) are so easy to target and over fish when they are small because they school up and often stick around in the same area for days or more close to shore.

Adults are harder to over fish because they are constantly on the move, so they are simply not as susceptible to overfishing.

Originally Posted by bmercury

I know that there are people out there that keep EVERYTHING. I have seen the way people look at you when you throw back anything that is legal to keep.

There are people like that, but we are not all like that.

Most California fisherman learn ocean fishing on sportboats and sportboats have a interest in getting people to keep as many fish as possible. They are a business and they get business from advertising a high number of fish caught or high fish counts.

Once again it's about a mentality. If you think it's cool to kill as many fish as you can then that is what you do, and usually how you think about these things depends on where you learned to fish.

This last year do to the slow tuna season landings were really hurting for business so some really played up the local Sandbass fishing. For a while some landings were posting counts of 6000 bass a day during the spawn. They don't post catch and release numbers, they post fish killed and as far as they are concerned the more the better because big numbers mean lots of guys on their boats.

Now look at the larger picture. This was going on right during the last year of the MLPA debate right in the middle of arguments about inshore fishing and what the enviros want closed in the name of "conservation". So both the Enviros and the DFG were looking very closely at inshore fish counts.

Those 6000 fish a day counts may of gave the landings lots of short term business but they hurt the fishing community because now the enviros are calling for a closed season on bass during their spawn. Milton Love and the Santa Barbara crowd is already pushing for it. It's going to happen in the next two years, all because some landings wanted to increase their numbers of customers on their boats, and posted a bunch of dead bass in their counts.

There is no commercial fishery for those fish, only recs fish for those bass, and most Rec anglers like Kayakers don't take many but the sportboats do it because it's part of their business model and now because of their actions it's very likely that we will all loose our right to fish them during the spawning months, within a year or two.

What I'm saying here is that I hear you on that score. The keep everything you legally can mentality definitely hurts fisherman, if for no other reason then it gives us a bad rep, but what are you going to do?

There will always be sportboats, and it's always going to be in their best interest to keep as many fish as they can, because big counts are good for business, and more fish cleaning means more cash at the end of the day.

So as long as it's good for their bottom line they will take all they can, and that influences the fishing community as a whole.

Kinda like I said above posting big counts of fish like bass definitely encourages others to take more of them as well because it makes it seem more commonplace or acceptable to take them, but it's not necessarily good for fishing.

Once again it's not about bragging but it's about cultivating a mentality.

People do what they think it's cool to do. Right now we have group of fisherman convinced that there is nothing wrong with keeping every fish they hook as long as it's not over their limit, and with boat limits they can still catch fish for others even when that limit is achieved.

Is that good for fishing.. not really. It's a sportboat mentality, not the kayaker mentality, but it still exists even if it's something that needs to be changed.

Jim

[T Bone]

landings fishing the flats off HB were allways getting sandbass limits for full boats everyday for 6-8 weeks for years.Now I dont see those numbers anymore.And people are trying to blame humboldt squid!
We need to change the daily bag limit for bass to 5

[FISHIONADO]

Regarding Marlin, I'm not sure. I don't target any fish for "catch and release", that goes against my morals, I only fish for meat.

If the DFG determined that the Thresher fishery would be sustainable if we release everything less than 28" I would be happy with that. Same with Marlin. My point is, let's figure out the right regulations and then manage the resource accordingly. I'm going to lobby for a sustainable harvest, not protecting "trophy" size fish.

Jim, we've got to have a beer some time. We may not always agree but I respect your experience and passion for the subject.