Conservationist say that Greenland sharks are being blamed for deeper problems in the fisheries, from crowded waters to rising costs

NEED TO KNOW

• Greenland officials dropped a proposed shark bounty after the national government questioned whether it was legal
• Fishers say Greenland sharks damage costly halibut gear while competing for cod and halibut catches
• Conservationists warn the vulnerable species reproduces slowly and suggest non-lethal deterrents instead

A shark that can live for centuries is now at the center of a fight between fishers and conservationists in Greenland.

Earlier this year, officials in the Avannaata municipality on Greenland’s west coast approved a plan to cull 1,000 Greenland sharks, offering fishers 300 Danish kroner (about $45) for each shark heart, The Guardian reported.

According to a March statement from the conservation group Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat (ONKN), the municipal board voted on the bounty in February and planned to fund it from its pest control budget. The plan was eventually dropped after Greenland’s government questioned whether it was legal, per The Guardian, but a future cull hasn’t been ruled out.

Greenland sharks feed on the same halibut and cod local fishers catch and often get tangled in fishing gear. Henrik Jensen, a halibut fisher in Ilulissat, told the outlet that he has lost around 6,000 hooks this year. Jensen said shark damage can cost him as much as 30,000 kroner (roughly $4,500) in one day.

Avannaata Mayor Lars Erik Gabrielsen told the outlet, “We need to safeguard the income of fishers and the catch so that we can continue to eat the foods that we have relied on for generations.”

Others worry about the cull’s potential impact on the shark species. Scientists believe Greenland sharks don’t reach sexual maturity until around age 150 and can live more than 400 years, meaning their numbers recover very slowly. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessed the species as vulnerable in 2020.

“They are probably — biologically — the most sensitive species in the ocean to overfishing,” Simon Fraser University marine conservationist Nick Dulvy told The Guardian.

According to ONKN, the sharks can cover over 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240 miles) a year, despite being the slowest-swimming shark species, so new sharks would move in to replace any that were killed, making the cull’s effects moot. It also warns that discarded carcasses could draw even more sharks to fishing grounds. Greenland shark researcher Julius Nielsen said in ONKN’s statement that “initiating a bounty system of this magnitude is a risky path.”

Conservationists say the Greenland sharks are getting blamed for bigger problems in the country. ONKN director Jenseeraq Poulsen told The Guardian that the fisheries are also dealing with too many boats, tight quotas and rising costs.

“The shark is the visible, tangible version of a problem whose real drivers are structural,” he said.

Poulsen has proposed compensating fishers for lost gear and testing acoustic shark deterrents. Rebekka Nygård Bak, an adviser to Greenland’s fisheries ministry, told the outlet that rules requiring bycatch-friendly equipment and better bycatch reporting could also help.

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