Baby Blues - Fins - Juveniles

Today once again a quick stop into the fishing docks to see the latest catch and it is different everyday!

A friend of mine who was just here in Katsuura for the Taiji action did some research on the Katsuura Fishing Industry and this is what he sent me:

"Katsuura is a base port of coastal and offshore tuna longline fisheries and these fisheries sometimes target sharks. The major landed species are pelagic.

Blue shark is the  dominant species among pelagic fisheries and comprises more than 70% of sharks caught in the tuna longline fishery industry.

The major pelagic shark species caught by the tuna longline fishery are blue shark, bigeye thresher shark , oceanic whitetip shark , silky shark and shortfin mako shark.

There is no particular management objective on shark. However, the Fisheries Agency of Japan instructed the tuna longline fishermen to bring back both fins and carcass together when they land shark fins.

(Here's an interesting statement - I take "biological regulations" to mean the size of the sharks taken) :

Generally, there are no particular biological regulations in fisheries for sharks. However, the Japan Fisheries Agency instructs large distant tuna fishing boats to record shark bycatch and to bring back carcass as far as possible."


I seen a lot more sharks scattered in piles today and could not tell you how many exactly but I would say a lot more young ones then large ones.