West Australia’s cull has ended-–for now. The drum lines have been pulled. 100 sharks have been caught, and though the Premier claims that killing 100 sharks (no great white sharks—the species responsible for the attack), has been “educational.” Let’s hope this barbaric policy doesn’t return in November.

If you’d like to do a good deed for dusky sharks, an overfished species and help end the use of wasteful longline fishing in the Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean, here today is the LAST DAY. You can read about the proposal here. (Thanks to shark superstar Sarah Mucha for this information!)

Please e-mail  your comments to: Peter.Cooper@noaa.gov 

Subject: Amendment 5b (A5b) to the 
2006 Consolidated Highly Migratory Species 
Fishery Management Plan

Either submit your own original comments, or cut, paste & sign a version of this sample letter:

To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing in reference to the comment period on Amendment 5B (A5B) to the 2006 Consolidated HMS Fishery Management Plan. My comment is as follows-
POTENTIAL RECREATIONAL MEASURES
It is my opinion the closure of the Atlantic recreational shark fishery “ALT-A8” would have the most impact on helping reduce the number of incidental landings of Dusky sharks. If this measure is unattainable I feel the next appropriate measures would be to combine “ALT-A3” for public awareness on regulations and shark identification, “ALT-A4″ prohibiting retention of all ridgeback sharks in the Atlantic Recreational Fishery, ALT-A5” extending end of existing shark closures from July 15th to July 31st would give added protection to nursery areas, along with “ALT-A7” allowing only catch and release of all Atlantic HMS managed sharks and retention of recreational caught sharks prohibited would all help meet the goal of reducing mortality and rebuilding populations of not just Dusky sharks but also other listed species.
POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL MEASURES
Over all “ALT-B10 removal of all pelagic longlines as authorized gear for Commercial Atlantic shark permit holders or “ALT-B5” closure of the hot spots would have the greatest results of impact towards reducing the mortality of Dusky sharks along with multiple listed HMS of sharks and other marine life. This would help maintain at or below levels of mortality that in turn would work towards the result in a 70% rebuilding in the time frame recommended of a 100 years by assessment. Along with “ALT-B9” extending end of existing shark closure from July 15th to July 30th to further protect nursery grounds.
Due to the Dusky’s slow growth rate, maturity later than other shark species, their 3 year reproductive cycle, and small litter sizes of 3-12 pups, they fall under the characteristics resulting in a low intrinsic rate of population increase. The implementation of these alternative stringent regulatory measures should be required to recover the collapsed populations of Dusky sharks.
Thank you,