Indian sharks: Why India must prioritize shark awareness to enable conservation

The whale shark was the first fish to be protected under India's Wildlife (Protection) Act. (Photo credit: Zac Wolf via Wikimedia Commons)

There was a time when the whale shark thrived off the coast of Gujarat. Travellers, who came to Bombay from Kenya via Porbandar, often saw these majestic creatures swim alongside their ship. Locals did not eat the meat of this “big fish”, but did hunt it occasionally, using the oil from its liver to waterproof their fishing boats. Then, in the mid-90s, demand for its meat and fins grew from European and Southeast Asian markets. Rampant fishing, together with climate change and ocean pollution, resulted in their numbers declining by 63 percent in the Indo-Pacific region as of 2020. Today, the largest living fish in the world is inching towards extinction.

Unfortunately, it isn’t the only shark species whose populations have plummeted. A 2021 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species assessment shows that 37.5 percent of the world's sharks and rays are threatened. While overfishing is the sole threat for 67.3 percent of species, it interacts with three other threats for the remaining third: loss and degradation of habitat (31.2 percent of threatened species), climate change (10.2 percent), and pollution (6.9 percent).

Cumulatively, the decline is significant. “We demonstrate that — despite ranging farther from land than most species — oceanic sharks and rays are at exceptionally high risk of extinction, much more so than the average bird, mammal or frog,” said Dr Nicholas Dulvy, professor at Simon Fraser University, in a statement.

The picture in India is grim too. More than 75 percent of species are threatened in tropical and subtropical waters than at temperate latitudes, indicating widespread loss of ecological function and services.

Local connect

As per the World Wildlife Fund, there are over 500 species of sharks. More are discovered every year. Of these, 150 species are found in the Indian waters, as per the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI).

Some are legally protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act. Such as the whale shark, which was the first fish to be added to the list in 2001. Also on it is the Ganges river shark, which is endemic to India and critically endangered. The Pondicherry shark, on the other hand, is broadly distributed in the Indo-Pacific region, but favours Indian waters. Among the more common shark species that are spotted off the Indian coast are the milk shark, the blackfin shark, the grey shark, the spot-tail shark, and the spade-nose shark.

“Sharks have a crucial role to play in the marine ecosystem. They are apex predators and the rich biodiversity that exists in our oceans is intricately connected to them. They are crucial in maintaining ecological balance by regulating species abundance, distribution and diversity. Without this keystone species, ocean life as we know it will cease to exist,” say Vidya Parmar, a marine biologist who has been studying sharks off the coast of Tamil Nadu for the past decade.

Top threats

Human activities are the biggest source of the pressures resulting in shark population losses, the principal threats being hunting the fish for its fin and meat, overfishing and bycatch (accidentally being caught in the gear meant for other fish).

India, for instance, is the third-largest shark-producing nation in the world according to a 2019 report by TRAFFIC. As per the 2015 National Plan of Action for Sharks in India by the CMFRI, the annual landing of sharks in India during the period 1961-2013 fluctuated between 29,000 tonnes and 75,000 tonnes, with the annual average being 52,640 tonnes. Gujarat and Maharashtra on the west coast and Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh on the east coast were the biggest contributors.

Growing demand for the fish has resulted in unsustainable fishing practices, excessive juvenile bycatch, and illegal shark fin trade. “Catching a shark and eating its meat is not illegal in India, unless it is a species protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act. What is concerning, though, is that there is a lot of consumer demand for small-bodied and juvenile sharks, which causes an imbalance. In the long run, it results in a steep decline in shark numbers and sizes, which also has an economic impact on fisheries and traders,” says Arjun Singh, an independent marine biologist based out of Puducherry.

How we can help

There’s a lot that can be done to reverse this. For instance, a 2022 study found that most past research on sharks and rays in India focused on a few states and charismatic species. “We also need to pay attention to the hammerheads, and the blacktips that seem abundant now, but could be impacted in the future due to flawed fishing practices. Conservation, however, is only possible if we have baseline data on all species,” says Singh.

Another approach, which has worked in Indonesia, would be to conduct a productivity-sensitivity analysis to identify at-risk shark and ray species; and priority sites for conservation. Alongside understanding the ecology and biology of sharks, there’s also a need to understand the human behaviours that drive fisheries and develop solutions that are beneficial to both locals and nature.

Lastly, fisheries in India are poorly regulated and there is little awareness about sustainable fishing practices and protected sharks. “Fishermen need to be educated about threatened species. Perhaps a detailed handbook on sustainable fishing practices translated into local languages could be created and distributed along the coastline,” says Parmar.

In 2022, 104 shark and ray species received global protections at the CITES Conference of the Parties (COP19) held in Panama City. It restricts their trade to sustainable and legal avenues. Such measures help, but more are needed to save the shark, which came to existence 400 million years ago, from going extinct.