Dead or alive, a caught mako shark must be recorded under the landing ban. But “sometimes when sharks come up, they’re not moving,” says Heather Bowlby, research lead at the Canadian Atlantic Shark Research Laboratory. She says this can make it difficult to classify whether a shark is dead or alive. “They’re just spiralling through the water column. They may look a little beat up or they might look fine.” With the landing ban in place, any subjectivity is removed and there is reduced potential for misclassification. 

“Although not directly the target of the ban, people could still derive value from them in terms of being able to sell them,” says Bowlby. She explains that, now that sharks can’t be landed at all, it can cost fishermen money when sharks need to be cut off gear. Hooks and lines can also be wasted.

“There’s actually a very slight negative incentive to catch those animals, which we’re hoping will actually lead to spatial-temporal management by the fleet,” Bowlby says. “If they’re catching a lot of sharks, it’s very likely they’ll move to another area so that they’re not both wasting their time or losing gear.” 

Released in May 2022, an assessment report led by Bowlby looks at the recovery potential of shortfin mako sharks in the North Atlantic. Using an at-sea observer program, researchers looked at the scope of animals that were recorded as dead at-vessel to understand the proportions of dead vs. alive sharks. Bowlby says that between 2010 and 2017, 20 to 30 per cent of sharks were recorded as being dead once at-vessel. After the first year of the landing ban, this number jumped to half and then to just under 70 per cent the following year. She says that the assumption that sharks were being recorded incorrectly could be inferred by the very notable increase of sharks that were now being recorded as dead. 

The report also assessed how many mako sharks were caught in the North Atlantic over time. Since 1994, annual catches of shortfin mako averaged 3,685 tonnes with an average of 67 tonnes per year coming from Canada. Within the country, the majority of landings come from fisheries in the Maritimes with minimal contributions from Quebec and Gulf regions, the report states. In the early 2000s, landings of mako sharks were around 70 tonnes but this decreased to approximately 32 tonnes in 2012. However, in recent years, this number has fluctuated, with a decrease between 2018 and 2019, partially related to a change in license conditions which mandated the release of all live captures. With the new landing ban in place, even sharks that are dead at-vessel must still be released. 

Prior to the ban, Bowlby says there was no incentive to avoid catching mako sharks, as fisheries could still derive value from them. Since the ban has been put in place, it’s become more of a nuisance to catch a shark by accident.

To reduce mako mortality further, Bowlby says work would have to focus on minimizing the potential for interaction with fishing boats, so the possibility that fisheries catch sharks at all is reduced. This can be done through practices like spatial-temporal management, i.e. changing where and when people fish to avoid interaction with the species. 

The landing ban was implemented in mid-2022 and will remain in place until 2023, aiming to decrease the number of shortfin mako sharks landed by fisheries and encourage population growth. However, due to the slow development of makos, Byrne believes that two years is not enough. “It could be effective but it has to go on for years,” he says. “Two years really isn’t enough time to see a huge change.”

Bowlby explains that for Canada, the requirement is to submit data to ICCAT during July each year. Because of this, a full year’s worth of data on shark mortality won’t be available until much later. “We won’t actually know until 2024, at the earliest, what the drop in mortality has been,” she says. This is after when the ban will purportedly be lifted.

On whether the ban should be extended, Bowlby believes it will depend entirely on what scientific assessments state. “When we need the management, it should be there,” she says. “If we need different management, we should be able to adapt to that.” 

In a few years, if no changes are observed and fishermen feel as though they’re losing a significant portion of their income by not being able to sell mako sharks, then Byrne says questions should be asked about the success of the ban. “It could be a model that moves forward,” says Byrne. “I just hope we can rebuild the population and get the fishing community on board and not demonize fishermen at the same time.”