By Mike Leonard

You’ve waited months for a free Saturday to grab your buddies and head offshore to fish your favorite reef. Between kids, work and other obligations, free time doesn’t come as often as it used to. With gas, lunch, drinks, bait and tackle prices all on the rise, the bill for today’s trip costs you a bit more than you remember, but it’ll be worth it.

The seas are calm, the weather is cooperating, and the tide looks perfect. By all accounts, this should be a banner day of fishing and time well spent with friends.

After a smooth two-hour boat ride, it doesn’t take long to feel the familiar tug of a fish at the end of your line 100 feet below the boat. As you’re cranking the reel and getting the fish closer to the surface, the fight takes a sudden turn and the previously energetic fish you had at the end of your line feels more akin to a wet sock.

At first, pulling in a half-eaten fish carries some novelty. It’s not every day you get to experience shark behavior this intimately. By the second, third or tenth time, though, that novelty has worn off and it quickly becomes clear to everyone onboard that no matter how fast you reel, you’re not going to fend off the school of sharks taking advantage of the free meal attached to your hook.

Now you’re left with a tough decision. Do you stay and lose more of that expensive tackle and every fish you hook, or burn more costly fuel and precious time to head to a different spot with no guarantee you won’t meet the same fate? Neither choice seems promising, and soon that long list of to-do’s creeps into the back of your mind. Maybe calling it quits and staying home next time seems like the better option.

Growing Challenges with Sharks and Anglers

This is a common tale at the docks from anglers and captains these days. Shark depredation, when a shark consumes some or all of a fish before the angler can land it, is on the rise, and while this occurrence is not a new phenomenon, the increased frequency is causing frustration across the recreational fishing community.

Colloquially known as “paying the taxman,” the science backs up these observations as well. According to a 2022 study by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 77 percent of more than 500 anglers and guides surveyed in North America experienced shark depredation between 2017 and 2021.

While shark populations were previously reduced due to overfishing, management efforts have succeeded in rebuilding many shark stocks under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). At the same time, more Americans are fishing than ever before, resulting in more encounters and potentially dangerous interactions for both anglers and sharks.

One of the lingering issues remains a complex management structure for shark species. In the United States, sharks are managed at state, interstate and national levels, as well as through international treaties. Although this multi-layered management framework has contributed to the success in rebuilding some shark populations, it also presents constraints in how fishery managers can respond to increasing shark interactions.

How Do We Mitigate It?

The bipartisan, bicameral Supporting the Health of Aquatic Systems through Research, Knowledge, and Enhanced Dialogue (SHARKED) Act aims to take a bite out of this problem.

The bill, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) and Marc Veasey (D-Tex.), and in the Senate by Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), would direct the Secretary of Commerce to establish a task force of state and federal fisheries managers, shark experts and stakeholders dedicated to mitigating shark depredation.

In 2022, the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) developed a position statement to support this proposed legislation, outlining four pillars to reduce harmful shark interactions in both the short and long term: education, management, policy and research.

Specifically, it calls for investigating issues such as the value of relocation, the effectiveness of shark deterrents, and amending the MSA to end the practice of shark feeding nationwide. Prohibitions currently exist in Hawaii and the Western Pacific, and have been proposed in Florida.

The SHARKED Act passed the House in short order at the beginning of the 119th Congress and has advanced out of the Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee. At the time of this writing, the bill is waiting on a full Senate vote before heading to the President’s desk to become law.

ASA and its partners are optimistic that through this legislation meaningful change can be enacted to protect sharks, anglers and the sportfishing industry.

Mike Leonard is the Vice President of Government Affairs for the American Sportfishing Association based in Alexandria, Virginia.

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