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Threats – man against shark!
While basking sharks pose no threat to humans, sadly we can cause them real problems. Listed as endangered in the North East Atlantic Ocean, basking sharks are now protected by UK and international law, but they still face some serious threats.
Fishing
Like most shark species, basking sharks’ life history involves late maturity and infrequent breeding, which means the species is vulnerable to over-fishing. Over the years basking sharks have been hunted for their body parts, including their cartilage, which was assumed to have medicinal properties, and their liver for the oil, which was used as fuel and as an industrial lubricant. Basking sharks are no longer hunted specifically for these products, but their enormous fins are valuable to the Asian shark fin soup trade. The sale of basking shark products has been illegal in Europe since 2007, but basking sharks continue to be illegally landed along the Atlantic coast of the continent, probably in small numbers.
Bycatch
Perhaps a greater threat these days is posed by accidental entanglement of sharks in fishing gear (bycatch). MCS occasionally gets reports of basking sharks entangled in gill nets, trawler nets and buoy ropes of static gear such as tangle nets and crab pots. We do not know the scale of this problem but plan to carry out a basking shark bycatch survey with UK fishermen within the next three years.
Disturbance
As people get know about these amazing sharks they want to see them in the flesh, and some basking shark surface feeding hotspots, such as those found off South West Cornwall and the Isle of Man, now host thriving marine wildlife watching boat trip businesses. While collisions with boats can be fatal for the sharks, we do not fully understand how the presence of sightseeing boats around basking shark groups may be affecting their behaviour. It is illegal to intentionally disturb a basking shark in the UK, and MCS plans to investigate basking shark disturbance at hotspots in coming years. In the meantime, we have produced the Basking Shark Code of Conduct with our partners and support the efforts of the Wildlife Safe (WISE) boat operator training scheme.
Basking shark law in the UK and Europe
In the UK basking sharks are afforded full protection from intentional capture or disturbance in British waters (up to 12 miles offshore) under the 1998 Schedule 5 listing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981). Basking sharks are protected in European waters by a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) of zero sharks by European fishers and in European waters under Council Regulation 2555/2001. Basking sharks are also protected to some degree under international agreements between countries signed up to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).
