Letter To The Editor: Recreational Fishermen Aren't Putting Us At Risk Of Shark Attacks

By John DePersenaire, Recreational Fishing Alliance

Regarding “Sharks Attacks in N.J., Elsewhere More Likely Than Ever In 2016, Experts Say,” published June 1, 2016, on the Patch, it is a perfectly reasonable to agree that there are more sharks around, particularly in New Jersey waters. 

Talk to any commercial or recreational fisherman up and down the coast and they will certainly agree that there are more sharks than ever in the water now along our beaches.  We are hearing more and more that fishermen are having a hard time avoiding sharks when targeting other, more sought after species.  As logic would dictate, if there are more sharks in the ocean there are going to be more shark sightings so in this regard, I concur with the article. 

Where I take issue with the article in the notion that recreational fishing is somehow drawing sharks into swimming waters.  This is an unsubstantiated claim that attempts to link recreational fishing to increased shark sightings.  On an even more alarming level, the article implies that recreational fishing is putting swimmers and other users in danger by drawing sharks into swimming waters. 

There is a very big difference between correlation and causation and the author confuses the two in this article.  I can probably correlate the increased number of shark sightings to the amount of traffic on the Garden State Parkway, yet no rational person would believe that more Parkway traffic caused an increase in shark numbers. 

The distinction between cause and correlation is huge.  To dismiss the claim, one only has to look at NOAA Fisheries data on recreational fishing in New Jersey showing that the number of trips made by recreational anglers who fish off of New Jersey’s beaches has remained stable over the same decade that the author cites as accounting for three of the 15 shark attacks in New Jersey since 1916. 

To speculate that recreational fishing provokes shark attacks you would have to also see a massive increase of recreational fishing off the beach in the last decade to account for the above average number of shark attacks; that has not happened.  

To further debunk to this claim, most local fishing tackle shops will confirm that there has been an overall downward trend in bait sales and angler participation over the past 8 years. If there are fewer recreational anglers using less bait along the beaches, there is really no justification to even assume that recreational fishing is drawing sharks to swimming areas. Using the author's logic, the fact is with fewer anglers along the beach now, there are actually more sharks appearing where our swimmers are swimming!

There was in fact a downtrend in coastal shark populations in the 1980s and '90s; George Burress, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida recently placed blame for that on the movie "Jaws" and subsequently the recreational fishermen for catching all the sharks, saying "Every red-blooded American man felt obliged to go out and catch sharks, which were readily capturable … it became the blue-collar marlin."

In recent years, shark populations have rebounded along the Jersey Shore and elsewhere. There are several reasons for this. 

First, prior to the passage of the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976, foreign fishing vessels would vacuum up everything and anything that swam, sharks included, from along our coast. This no longer occurs as foreign fishing boats not permitted inside our EEZ, which along the Atlantic Coast is 200 miles offshore. 

In addition, domestic harvest of sharks by commercial fishermen in New Jersey has decreased from roughly half a million pounds in the early to mid-1990s to roughly 10,000 pounds in 2014 -- a greater than 90 percent reduction in landings.

Finally, significant management efforts have been taken in the past decade to rebuild shark populations, and they have succeeded. With no directed fishing on great white sharks and record high abundance of seals along the Atlantic coast, one would only expect white sharks to increase in numbers, which they have. The same goes for most other sharks that feed on fish such as mackerel, bluefish and other tasty forage species, all of which swim along the Jersey Shore.

It is these forage fish species -- mackerel and bluefish are prime targets of sharks -- and a change in fishing regulations on menhaden (also known as bunker) that have draw more sharks into Jersey Shore waters. In 2001, a ban was implemented on the harvest of menhaden in New Jersey waters for reduction purposes -- an industrialized type of fishing that was used to turn bunker into a variety of products. With reduction boats now banned, that keeps literally millions of tons of food protected inside our waters, creating an inshore buffet for striped bass, bluefish, and, yes, sharks. 

It is a damned if we do, damned if we don’t argument, blaming recreational fishermen for killing too many sharks and now blaming them for potential shark attacks. Even Mr. Burgess, as an experienced shark researcher, has noted that shark populations are on the rise due to two decades of conservation.

Recreational fishing is not the cause of increased numbers of sharks and sharks sightings; domestic and international fishery management laws are the primary cause, and that’s according to the scientists themselves!

As a lifelong surfer, fisherman and father with children who spend more time at the beach every summer than I can possibly count, the idea of increased numbers of sharks and more specifically sharks displaying more aggression behavior toward humans is a concern. But I do not believe recreational fishing has put my family at greater risk. 

Research projects and media campaigns have turned sharks like Mary Lee into internet superstars, and movies like "Finding Nemo" have made them sound cute and cuddly. Perhaps people half-expected the sharks themselves to be more appreciative of all the effort and money spent to protect them, rather than remembering that these million-year-old wild animals can attack humans.

Now that there are more sharks in the water and interacting more with humans, it would appear that people are scrambling to find a scapegoat to make themselves feel safe. Let's not blame the fishermen, however. The amount of bait they are using is miniscule compared with the banquet nature has provided for the sharks.

John DePersenaire is the fishery policy and science researcher for the Recreational Fishing Alliance.