Sphyrna lewini | UAE National Red List of Marine Species: Reef-building corals, cartilaginous fishes and select bony fishes
Taxa
Sphyrna lewini | (Griffith & Smith, 1834)
Publication
Asessment status in full
Endangered
Assessment status abreviation
EN
Assessment status criteria
A2d
Assessment rationale/justification
The Scalloped Hammerhead occurs throughout UAE inshore and offshore waters, and is apparently infrequently captured there. Capture of this species is totally banned in the UAE. All life-stages of this species are vulnerable to capture in both targeted and incidental fisheries that occur in both coastal areas as well as oceanic. Although there are limited data on its status, other shark species in the Arabian Gulf have undergone significant declines due to exploitation. It is apparently highly migratory, and has slow life history characteristics including low fecundity and a low annual rate of population increase. Considering this, the species has a low capacity to recover from even moderate levels of exploitation. It is especially susceptible to exploitation (target and bycatch) in many largely unregulated gill net, longline and trawl fisheries that operate within its range outside and surrounding UAE waters. Some management measures are now in place in the Arabian Sea region, although domestic fisheries are likely to continue. Though data specifically from the UAE are not available, individuals in the UAE are a component of a larger, interconnected and migratory population that occurs broadly in the north-western Indian Ocean. It is inferred that declines reported in the Arabian Sea region are representative of its status in the UAE. There is evidence that a distinct subpopulation of this species occurs in the Arabian Sea region. Based on recorded levels of exploitation, it is suspected to have declined by at least 50% over the past three generation lengths, or about 72 years. It is listed as Endangered A2d.
Assessment year
2019
Assessors/contributors/reviewers listed
UAE National Red List Workshop
Affliation of assessor(s)/contributors/reviewers listed on assessment
Government
IGO
Assessor affiliation specific
Government|IGO
Criteria system specifics
IUCN v3.1
Criteria system used
IUCN
Criteria Citation
IUCN. 2012. IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria: Version 3.1, Second edition. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. iv + 32pp pp. And IUCN. 2012. Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria at Regional and National Levels: Version 4.0. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK: IUCN. iii + 41pp.
Endemic to region
Not_assigned
Endemism Notes
Is an endemic?: Not_assigned
Threats listed in assessment
Information pertaining to threats specific to the UAE are unavailable. This species is impacted by target (for fins and their valuable meat) and bycatch fisheries that are active elsewhere in its range. Finning and discarding of carcasses has also been reported, especially in offshore and high seas fisheries (Anderson and Simpfendorfer 2005). This species is being increasingly targeted in some areas in response to increasing demand for the fins (Jabado et al. 2015). Furthermore, aggregating behaviour and low survival at capture causes this species to be very susceptible to fishing pressure, and the recolonisation of depleted areas is expected to be a slow and complex process (Maguire et al. 2006, Drew et al. 2015).
Conservation Measures
Conservation measures:
Conservation measures notes:
Required conservation measures:
Scientific Name | Kingdom | Phylum | Class | Order | Family | Genus |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sphyrna lewini | Animalia | Chordata | Chondrichthyes | Carcharhiniformes | Sphyrnidae | Sphyrna |