📣BREAKING NEWS!
#ICCAT2023 : Atlantic Manta Ray & Blue Shark Conservation Advances Under UK Leadership!
EU promotes Whale Shark protection & risky Blue Shark quotas as Japan blocks #shark finning measure.
Read more here: bit.ly/ICCAT2023

#SharkLeague press release re: #ICCAT outcomes for Atlantic blue sharks, manta/devil rays & whale sharks:
sharkleague.org/2023/11/20/atl…

Meeting with our 🦈 friends from the Shark League in 🇪🇬 over 28th Commission Meeting of #ICCAT , where we hope to see positive outcomes for #blue sharks, #whale sharks, #mantas & mobulids this year 🤞

@sharkleague

@sharkAdvocates

The Shark Trust

Ecology Action Centre (EAC)

Deeply grateful to have been part of a very moving #JMIH23 #AES23 symposium paying tribute to the amazing life of Dr. John 'Jack' Musick: a giant in shark science & conservation who offered important lessons to countless mentees 💙🦈🥲

Today at the American Elasmobranch Society conference, there is a symposium honoring the life and legacy of longtime SSG Co-Chair Jack Musick. He passed away in 2021.

Dr. Jack Musick
Conversation lessons:
Show up
Speak up
Follow the Science
Stick to your principles
(Small and flat sharks matter)
Be direct and persistent
Stay engaged long term
(It'll take a while)

Jack Musick Symposium
CoS-By VIMS and the Save Our Seas Foundation.
#JMIH23

#JMIH23 #AES23 McMillan (Jack Musick’s widow) : “Jack believed that his legacy wasn’t his papers, or the world class fish collection be built- but what mattered the most to him was his students and their students”

(Here are his students and their students attending)

Fieldwork underway in Tarakan, North Kalimantan. Urogymnus polylepis and sawfish on the local knowledge survey menu, and as always, and eye being kept out for Glyphis sp. Save Our Seas Andrew Chin 🐀 #ratified Our trip is being facilitated by Borneo University

Jack was on my doctoral committee and had no shortage of pithy comments regarding that dissertation project. Glad he had a well-deserved send-off at #AES23 .

20 years since New England skate limits were set:
* Remarkable recovery of barndoor skate
* Winter skate supports sustainable fishery
* Thorny skate declined further, at just 3.5% of target
* Climate change exacerbates depletion
* Closed area & gear changes are urgently needed

20 years since #ESA listing for smalltooth sawfish:
* great science & outreach
* juvenile abundance is looking good
* bycatch mortality persists
* shrimp trawlers have very low observer coverage
* allowable take limit was recently increased
* essential mangrove habitat is at risk

30 years since 1st 🇺🇸 Atlantic shark fishing limits:
* finning ban sparked global progress
* blacktip shark population has been rebuilt
* shortfin mako & dusky sharks remain in trouble
* hammerhead assessment is underway
* common thresher assessment is needed
#SharkAwarenessDay

This #SharkAwarenessDay , we're at the annual Elasmobranch Society meeting marking key milestones in 🇺🇸 Atlantic shark/ray conservation:
* 30 years of shark fishery management
* 20 years of limits on 7 species of NE skates
* 20 years since smalltooth sawfish ESA listing
#JMIH23 #AES23

Cownose rays visit the Chesapeake Bay each summer to reproduce. Rays swim by flapping their fins like a bird. The tips of the fins break the surface and can look like shark fins. Many “shark” sightings in the Bay are actually cownose rays. #SharkAndRayAwarenessDay

📷: NOAA

MMF have started the first wedgefish tagging program in Mozambique - placing both satellite and acoustic tags on elusive and critically endangered species along the Inhambane Seascape in southern Mozambique- a globally significant hotspot.

Read more here- marinemegafauna.org/news-and-media…

Next up at #AES23 #JMIH23 is “estimating the composition of global shark and Ray fisheries” by Chris Mull

The global shark meat market is worth $2.6 billion, nearly twice as much as the value of fins, according to the “uncovering the global shark meat project”