A third of the world’s open-water sharks — including the great white and hammerhead — face extinction, according to a conservation survey that singles out overfishing as the main culprit. The survey of 64 species of open-water sharks and rays by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature notes the demand for shark fins, considered a Chinese delicacy, has soared along with income levels in China in the past decade.

Flinders University shark ecologist Charlie Huveneers says the proportion of sharks endangered was higher for the open-water sharks than for sharks in general, mainly because they were large species with slow reproductive rates and were slow to mature. Some, such as the grey nurse, produced only two pups every two years.

“That’s one of the reasons why that species is listed as critically endangered in NSW,” he said. Open-water shark species also lived in areas that were heavily fished and hard to regulate. The report identified the great hammerhead and scalloped hammerhead sharkand the giant devil rays as endangered. The smooth hammerhead, great white, basking and oceanic white-tip sharks are listed as vulnerable as are two species of makos.

Dr Huveneers said fishermen targeted sharks for their fins. The rest of it was discarded. Shark meat can fetch $1-$5 a kilogram, but the fin could bring up to $200 a kilogram. Commercial swordfish and tuna fisherman also caught sharks such as the blue shark and mako shark accidentally. Sharks are important in the ecosystem, especially those at the top of the food chain such as the white, great white and great hammerhead.

Reducing their numbers could prompt an increase in the number of cownose rays, which consumed scallops. “The cascading effect of the decreasing of large sharks has an impact on the whole ecosystem, including humans who work in and benefit from the scallop industry,” he said.

original story from theage.com.au

Beachgoers might not be surprised to see a shark in the surf, but a different pair of predators has appeared on the Brevard County coast.

A rare American crocodile was captured at the Cocoa Beach Pier last Friday and there have been at least two separate alligator sightings in the ocean this week. One of the reptiles left its tracks in the sands of Satellite Beach.

Steven Harp, a professional photographer, followed the Satellite Beach gator, as it swam in the surf. It was the first time he ever saw one in salt water.

“You could tell the salt water was bothering his eyes. He was holding his head pretty high out of the water, not swimming like they normally do,” Harp said.

read the full story at orlandosentinel.com

The waves at La Jolla Shores are a beginning surfer’s dream. They break far from shore, and the beach’s gradual slope means that when they do, new surfers have plenty of time to ride the gentle shallow whitewater all the way to shore.

La Jolla Shores is a surf instructor’s dream, too. The scenic strip of San Diego’s coast and its oceanfront hotels and boutique shops draw tourists year-round, providing a renewing pool of potential clients.

Those factors make the four surf instruction permits that the city’s Real Estate Assets Department issues there the most lucrative of the 13 citywide. Since 2005, when the city first required permits for commercial surf instruction on San Diego’s beaches, two companies have shared the sands at La Jolla Shores.

But how the city has distributed those permits in the last four years is threatening to put one of those companies, Menehune Surf, out of business, said Darren Fulhorst, the company’s owner. When his competitor, Surf Diva, was granted only two of the three permits it bid on in 2005, the city circumvented the formal bidding process to create a fifth permit at La Jolla Shores, which it granted to Surf Diva, and in the years since has been unwilling to account for how or why it did so.

That decision, Fulhorst said, set the precedent for the city’s move to revoke one of his two permits and grant it to Surf Diva when the fifth permit was eliminated during the 2008 bidding process. Last year, Fulhorst’s company was awarded only one permit to operate on La Jolla Shores, cutting his operating capacity by half. Surf Diva was awarded the other three.

read more at voiceofsandiego.org