Bali – Alarming Shark Hunts

Desy Nurhayati
The
Jakarta Post

Marine scientists have announced that shark hunting in waters offshore Bali and surrounding areas has
reached an alarming rate, threatening the animal’s population.

Ketut Sarjana Putra, marine director of Conservation
International Indonesia (CII), said on Tuesday that the massive catches had
taken place in the waters around Nusa Penida, some six kilometers to the north
of the island and around the Tulamben area.

“Many shark species are endangered, and this
excessive degree of hunting could threaten their population, as most of the
sharks that are caught are adult females,” he said.

He explained that the hunt did not target certain
species of sharks. However, the primary species that is targeted around Bali is
the thresher shark.

Several months ago, a team from CII held a marine
survey in waters around Bali. During their 200 hours of diving, they only found
three sharks.

It was a sign of overfishing, Ketut said, adding that
sharks acted as indicators of the ocean’s health, and that healthy oceans had a
balanced food chain.

Marthen Welly from the Coral Triangle Center said the
sharks were not caught in Nusa Penida, but around the Lombok Strait and the
waters off the eastern coast of Bali, including Kusamba in Karangasem, but that
all of the sharks were then transported to Bali.

We found out that some fishermen from Nusa Penida
also caught sharks, along with those from Lombok, he said. The sharks were not
only hunted for their fins, but also for their meat, he added.

Welly has no exact data on shark population in the
area, but the local fishermen usually catch around 50 to 70 sharks every season.

Shark hunting in Bali had reached an alarming rate. It needed to
be reduced, or even totally halted, because sharks took a long time to breed;
but the hunting was increasing, he said.

Welly regretted that Indonesia had yet to introduce a
regulation outlawing shark fishing, despite the fact that many shark species had
been declared endangered.

Both Ketut and Welly said the ideal population of
sharks remained questionable because there had been no comprehensive study
carried out.

Data produced by the Bali Shark Project on thresher
shark fishing in Nusa Penida during September and October revealed that there
were dozens of sharks ready to be transported from an old ferry terminal running
from Sampalan (Nusa Penida) to Kusamba in mainland Klungkung.

More than 90 percent of them were pelagic thresher
sharks, which would be brought to Bali, and later transported again for national
and international trade.

According to local fishermen and ferry workers, the
average number caught per day was 70, but the record day during the current
season saw 125 sharks killed.

During the two-month hunting season, as many as 4,500 pelagic thresher sharks
may be killed.

The area is also fished by boats that sell their
catches directly to Bali and also to Lombok. The total catch may be much larger
and could involve bigger ships unloading their catches directly to Benoa Port in
south Bali.

Ninety percent of the sharks are female pelagic
thresher sharks, and most of them are pregnant, normally with two pups, usually
one male and one female.

Early every morning along the beaches of Nusa Penida,
the sharks are gutted and their massive tail fins cut for easier transportation.
Then the fetal sharks are disposed of into the ocean with the rest of the
guts.

From the beach they are transported to the wooden
ferry terminal in Sampalan, then onto the ferry to Kusamba, where they are
processed: the fins, heads and remaining guts are cut off and separated from the
body.

Most of the meat goes to freezer facilities at Benoa
and from there to Java, while the fins disappear into the international market
before ending up on menus in restaurants.