Plan for Imperiled Shark Doesn’t Please All Conservationists

COURTESY OF NOAA

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A group of conservationists says a federal plan to protect a threatened shark that lives in East Coast waters doesn’t go far enough.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing changes to federal fishing rules with the goal of protecting dusky sharks. The species is a large shark that lost much of its population due to commercial fishing for them that’s now illegal off the U.S.

The fisheries service is proposing a suite of new rules for recreational and commercial fishermen that are designed to protect the shark, which is sometimes still killed by accidental bycatch. But conservation group Oceana says the rules aren’t strict enough, and leave sharks vulnerable.

Dusky sharks live from Maine to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico on the East Coast. They have long been hunted for fins.

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