
DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997             TAG: 9704230528

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:  129 lines

VIRGINIA ALL BUT BANS SHARK FISHING OFF COAST

Virginia imposed a virtual ban on shark fishing Tuesday, passing new restrictions expected to slash the commercial harvest of 38 types of sharks from state waters by more than 90 percent.

The drastic move came amid growing scientific fears that Atlantic shark populations from New York to Florida are diving to historic lows. Overfishing and the lure of big money in overseas markets are largely to blame, biologists agree.

Alarmed by this trend, the federal government this month abruptly closed its offshore sharking season throughout the Atlantic, and urged coastal states to quickly follow suit in their territorial seas, from the shoreline to 3 miles out.

In adopting its new rules Tuesday, Virginia balked at an outright closure and left standing its one-shark-per-person-per-trip limit for recreational fishermen and those aboard charter boats.

Instead, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, by a 7-1 vote, barred commercial fishermen from catching sharks measuring less than 58 inches from snout to tail.

But this rule, in effect, represents a near moratorium, because almost no sharks found in state waters get that big. Most are either newborns or undersized juveniles, left here by their migrating mothers, explained Jack Musick, a leading shark researcher from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

The lower Chesapeake Bay and the waters around the Barrier Islands off Virginia's Eastern Shore are the central nurseries for the Atlantic's most popular commercial species, the sandbar shark, Musick said.

Female sandbar sharks swim here in droves in May and June and give birth to their pups - usually eight to a litter - in the mouth of the Bay or along the sheltered waters around the Barrier Islands, Musick said.

The mothers then swim away, and the youngsters must fend for themselves before they, too, join the annual migration up and down the Atlantic coast.

Musick and commission member Shep Davis were not happy with one aspect of the new rules, which will allow commercial fishermen to keep up to 200 pounds of sharks per day as a ``tolerance.''

Musick feared that 200 pounds of shark, after being cut up and dressed on board a fishing boat, could equate to about 50 youngsters. He questioned whether much-needed protections of young sandbar sharks will be damaged by this concession.

Likewise, Davis chastised fellow commission members for not being tougher. But he was out-voted by a commission that felt hard-hit fishermen already are giving up a lot.

``When they say they're willing to reduce their catch by 90 percent, that's pretty big in my book,'' said commission member Chad Ballard.

The plight of Atlantic sharks - from tiger sharks, to hammerheads, to whites - stems from a gourmet fascination with their fins, which are diced into soup, and bad biology.

It takes sharks nearly 15 years to reach sexual maturity, and then they only give birth once every two years after that, Musick said.

As the market for their meat and fins has expanded, especially in Asia, fishermen that once saw sharks as a nuisance species are now targeting them.

The combination of heavy fishing and slow recovery has spelled near disaster, with stocks dropping by as much as 50 percent along the coast, experts said.

Musick explained that dusky sharks, once the second most populous off Virginia, are hardly seen during his yearly survey. He compared the precarious future of the shark to that of the African elephant and other endangered species.

In Virginia, few fishermen go after sharks. They are instead caught in gill nets set for other, more traditional seafood species, such as flounder, said Ernie Bowden, president of the Eastern Shore Watermen's Association.

Bowden argued in favor of the 200-pound tolerance this way: Sharks are going to get hung up and die in nets anyway, so instead of tossing them back dead, why not let fishermen keep a little?

Groups including the Atlantic Coast Conservation Association and the Center for Marine Conservation had urged Virginia to follow the lead of the federal government and close its waters to commercial sharking.

Jack Travelstead, state director of saltwater fisheries, said Georgia and Florida have barred commercial sharking in their waters, while other states still are debating what to do.

In North Carolina, where commercial sharking is a big business in the early spring, industry leaders and U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth have lobbied the government to suspend its offshore restrictions. They argue that the National Marine Fisheries Service overestimated the decline of shark stocks and underestimated the economic impact on their livelihoods. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

SHARKS IN TROUBLE

Here are the 38 types of sharks protected by tough new commercial

fishing restrictions imposed Tuesday in Virginia. Each is considered

in biological trouble:

Sevengill shark

Sixgill shark

Bigeye sixgill shark

Atlantic angel shark

Nurse shark

Whale shark

Ragged-tooth shark

Sand tiger shark