Greenland hunters demand execution of 1,000 sharks, some over 400 years old
The Avannaata municipality halted plans to execute 1,000 Greenland sharks following opposition from the Oceans North organization, Kalaallit Nunaata, and Simon Fraser University.
Translated by Qiyas from الجريدة — Original source
Greenlandic fishermen plan to cull approximately 1,000 Greenland sharks, which can live for more than 400 years, making them the longest-lived vertebrates on Earth. This move followed an offer by one municipality to pay $45 per shark, before the plan was halted.
Last February, the Avannaata municipality, located on Greenland’s west coast, approved a mass culling plan in response to demands from local fishermen who said the sharks, which can reach lengths of about 6 meters, frequently become entangled in fishing nets and lines, causing significant equipment losses. Henrik Jensen, a 27-year-old fisherman, said he lost about 6,000 hooks this year, adding that they sometimes lose equipment worth 30,000 Danish kroner, or about $4,500, in a single day.
Lars Erik Gabrielsen, mayor of Avannaata, said the plan aims to protect fishermen’s incomes and the fisheries upon which the population has relied for generations for their food. However, the plan faced opposition and was halted amid concerns about causing irreversible harm to Greenland sharks, which do not reach sexual maturity until age 150 and are believed to carry their young for more than a decade, making population recovery from overfishing extremely slow.
Nick Dulvy, a marine biologist at Simon Fraser University, said these sharks may be “the most biologically sensitive to overfishing” among ocean species. Greenland sharks were listed as “Vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2020.
These sharks live in cold coastal waters around Greenland, northern Canada, and Europe, and can travel distances of up to about 1,240 miles annually. The organization Oceans North Kalallit Nunaat said this mobility makes the culling plan less effective, as new sharks may arrive to replace those that are culled.
The organization warned that establishing a reward system of this magnitude represents a “dangerous path,” noting that the plan could be revived in the future despite its current suspension. Jensina Paavolainen, the organization’s director, said the sharks represent “the visible and tangible manifestation of a problem whose real drivers are structural,” arguing that overfishing and an excess of boats in Greenland’s fisheries are the core issues that the shark culling plan attempts to address.
