This viral trend is killing endangered sharks🦈

and it needs to stop

Shark poaching is being shared as “shark rescues” to reach millions of views online. This trend needs to stop, and you can help, here’s how:

“This boy was struggling to free a shark that had a fishing hook stuck in its mouth,” a viral video opens, “Another boy quickly jumped in to help. After some effort, they managed to remove the hook and safely release the shark.”

It’s a nice story. It’s also completely FALSE – and the “boys” in the video are two of the internet’s most prolific shark poachers, dragging a critically endangered great hammerhead from the ocean.

In the past decade, land-based shark fishing has become a full-blown social media spectacle. In a frenzy for followers, some of the most popular fishing pages on the internet openly and routinely violate legal protections for prohibited species, delaying mandatory releases by pulling sharks' gills or entire bodies out of the water to record social media content while they gasp for oxygen. In a macabre twist, these videos have now become the fodder of bots and content scrapers, remixing the hook removal clips as feel-good “shark rescues”. I’m a shark scientist and this article is designed to equip you with the knowledge and resources to identify and take action against social media shark poaching.

Peer-reviewed research demonstrates that the stress of these events is often lethal, recording that roughly a quarter of sharks die within hours of catch and release, with as high as 50% mortality for sensitive species, such as hammerheads. Yet these sharks are among the most sought-after by land-based shark fishermen on social media.

Scientists have been tracking great hammerheads disappearing along the US southeast coast. Wildlife codes are meant to discourage fishers from targeting habitats for prohibited species, yet these fishers zero in on them and repeatedly catch these rare predators, specifically in areas where they can catch the largest and most critical individuals to the population.

The first and simplest thing you can do to help stop shark poaching is sign this petition asking social media platforms to restrict this content and state wildlife agencies to enforce shark protections. List your name beside shark biologists, environmental activists, and concerned citizens around the world to help build our formal case to the moderators of social media platforms.

3 THINGS THAT WILL TELL YOU SHARK POACHING IS HAPPENING ONLINE SO YOU CAN REPORT THE VIDEO

Once you’ve done that, the next step is to learn how to identify and report illegal shark fishing videos. Unfortunately, land-based shark fishing is legal in most jurisdictions, but there are often protections for ‘prohibited species’, which cannot legally be retained if caught. You can determine whether most shark fishing videos are legal by identifying three things: location, species, and handling technique.

1. LOCATION

Typically, you’ll need to rely on the user identifying location in the caption, metadata, or video itself, although sometimes locals can identify landmarks. In the United States, fishing from shore falls under state jurisdiction. Species are sometimes identified in videos and are often correct, but not always. This article won’t get into detail on shark identification, but there are many excellent resources you can refer to online. Finally, we’ll need to look at the handling. The most important concerns are whether a prohibited shark is removed from the water or delayed from being released. Most often, this looks like posing for a photoshoot.

Let’s review some examples. This article will focus on the United States, an epicenter of land-based shark poaching, but you can use this process to become familiar with shark protections anywhere.

2. IDENTIFY THE SPECIES

From this video, we can clearly identify a hammerhead shark in Florida. By the size and shape of the cephalofoil, we can tell this one is a great hammer (Sphyrna mokarran), but referring to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website on shark regulations, we can see that all local hammerhead species are prohibited in the state.

Furthermore, FWC states that “Prohibited shark species must remain in the water with the gills submerged when fishing from shore,” explicitly stating, “do not delay release just to take pictures.” In the fine print, we can see FWC code allows a shark’s head to be lifted from the water, but only to remove a hook. [FAC 68B-44.004 (3)]

3. HANDLING TECHNIQUE

Yet this hammerhead is being held out of water for photos after the hook has been removed. That’s poaching. Report it to the social media platform. While it is certainly animal cruelty, identify it instead as restricted content. This will help moderators understand that this video depicts a wildlife crime.

Florida, in particular, is a hotbed of shark poaching posts. This has to do with the popularity of fishing and abundance of sharks, but also our strong (albeit unenforced) shark protections. Whenever you see a hammerhead, tiger, lemon, sandbar, dusky, or mako shark beached on the sand for a photoshoot in Florida, that’s poaching. Refer to the full list of prohibited species for many more.

From a boat, laws are generally the same in state waters, but often sharks are caught in federal waters, beginning just three nautical miles offshore. Federally, sharks have few protections, but there are still several prohibited species; including makos, sand tigers, whites, and of course whale sharks.

Let’s take a look at another example. This one is a sand tiger (Carcharias taurus) in New York state. You can ID the sand tiger by the thin, protruding teeth and big second dorsal fin, but you can also watch the video closely to see this species identified.

For this video, we’ll take a look at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation shark regulations. Sand tigers are a prohibited species. NYSDEC declares that “A shark that is not being harvested may not be removed from the water. The entire length of the shark must remain in the water with its gills submerged.” [6 NYCRR Section 40.7(c)]

Yet this sand tiger is completely beached on the sand. That’s poaching. Report it and once again make sure to flag it as restricted content.

Keep in mind that these acts don’t constitute poaching everywhere, or even in every state –some states don’t even list their shark protections online. For these, eregulations.com is a great resource. Become familiar with the shark protections in your country and region. If you’re not sure, it’s better not to report as restricted content to avoid false positives. If you have questions, tips, or need help determining regulations where you live, you can hit me up on social media @fish_defender.

By documenting social media shark poaching and sharing the petition, we can work together to build a stronger case to restrict illegal shark fishing content on social media platforms and demonstrate to wildlife agencies that shark poaching on public beaches is a widespread issue and serious threat to our cherished and highly endangered sharks.

- written by Spencer Roberts