Sharks Oh My

Sargasso seaweed  and fishermen

By 2012 sharks that have been facing extinction will now have a sanctuary. In July the governors of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Republic of Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia signed a resolution to create the worlds first marine protected area for sharks.

Sharks have had a bad rap but the on going slaughter of sharks for their fins forced the islands to band together in order to protect the biological diversity of their marine environments. The area created (2,500,000 square miles) will be larger than the United States and will ban the possession, sale or offer for sale of any shark fins. The islanders claimed in their resolution that the lack of full scientific certainty about the size of the remaining populations of sharks was no reason to delay action.

Manta Rays will be protected in all the waters of Yap state.

People working together

Here in the Atlantic NOAA and France have recently partnered to protect the Humpback Whales that migrate each year from Massachusetts’ Stellwagen Bank to the French Antilles Agoa Sanctuary. The agreement will strengthen the relationships, monitoring and management of the whales between the two marine sanctuaries’s and help to preserve the species.

Our East End Marine Park here on St. Croix is part of a larger trend around the world to create areas of protection that are managed by local governments. Managing locally means the needs of fishermen, residents and those being protected are mutually compatible. Our park provides a host of allowable activities unlike the shark sanctuary. Some fishing and recreation is allowed in the turtle nesting areas; while on the underwater banks, no-take areas have been developed to protect spawning fish and their nursery’s freeing them from human predators.

Ready for visitors at Rainbow Beach

St. Croix’s other protected areas include the Buck Island National Park, Sandy Point National Refuge, Jacks and Isaacs run by the Nature Conservancy and Southgate managed by the Environmental Association. All these protected areas add to the rich environmental diversity St. Croix offers to its residents and visitors.

But is that enough, have we protected enough or are we just scratching the surface? On St. Croix environmentalists have been working on an Area of Particular Concern out at Great Pond. Great Pond is regularly visited in the spring and fall by migratory birds going back and forth between North and South America. We are a refueling stop for most species of sandpipers and some warblers. The endangered Least Terns nest at Great Pond over the summer and a small group of Whimbrels one of which has been tracked to Alaska spend the winter there feeding before they make their great migration back to the Hudson Bay area and further points west. Although we aren’t the biggest land mass compared with other islands we are just as important in the over all scheme of things. Every preserved step along the way of a migratory path for marine animals and birds means a greater chance for survival.

Sunrise

As more and more trans boundary endangered species face extinction nations have to come together to create safety zones where these species can reproduce and grow unhindered by commercial concerns. We share whales, sharks, dolphin, turtles, game fish and other migratory species such as birds with many countries. It is imperative that we cooperate with other nations and amongst ourselves to preserve their habitats so they can continue to thrive and be available to enjoy and cull for future populations.

There can never be too much preservation.

See ya next week.

Sunset