The fishing industry seems to eliminate anyone or anything that comes its way. These big economy generators had sparked a government sponsored program up until 1970 that would eradicate the basking sharks, because they have been interfering with the salmon fishing nets, never mind even if the eradication leads to the species’ extinction!
Jeff Hutchings, president of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada informed of this ‘devastating’ government sponsored program. Explaining the merciless procedure of eradicating the sharks, the government fisheries department ran a program in which it
took boats and rammed into these sharks to kill them because these large fishes were interfering with salmon nets.
The decline in the numbers of Canada’s basking sharks is ‘shockingly’ more than 90 percent! – as estimated by Hutchinson. And the trend, easily led the species to near-extinction, thanks to the selfish interests of the fishing industries.
This decrease in count is again compounded by the creature’s extra long three-and-a-half year gestation period needed for producing its young.
Hutchinson said,
When the population collapses it’s going to take a very long time to recover if they can at all. If only six have been seen in the last decade there must be very few of them left in the Pacific Ocean.
Photo: Discovery