Discovery of a multispecies shark aggregation and parturition area in the Ba Estuary, Fiji Islands.

ABSTRACT: Population declines in shark species have been reported on local and global scales, with overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change posing severe threats. The lack of species-specific baseline data on ecology and distribution of many sharks, however, makes conservation measures challenging. Here, we present a fisheries-independent shark survey from the Fiji Islands, where scientific knowledge on locally occurring elasmobranchs is largely still lacking despite the location's role as a shark hotspot in the Pacific. Juvenile shark abundance in the fishing grounds of the Ba Estuary (north-western Viti Levu) was assessed with a gillnet- and longline-based survey from December 2015 to April 2016. A total of 103 juvenile sharks identified as blacktip Carcharhinus limbatus (n

SUBMITTER: Vierus T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6065273 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature