SUMMARY

SUMMARY

IDENTIFICATION

SCIENTIFIC NAME(s)

Galeorhinus galeus

SPECIES NAME(s)

Tope shark

COMMON NAMES

School Shark, Snapper Shark, Soupfin Shark, Tope

School Shark (Galeorhinus galeus) has a broad distribution throughout temperate waters of the eastern North Atlantic, western South Atlantic, and north-eastern and south-eastern Pacific, off South Africa, New Zealand and southern Australia. There is some uncertainty about the stock structure for School Shark. A single biological stock is assumed for management purposes. A spatially structured fishery assessment model is applied to assess this biological stock because insufficient data exist to support more complex stock structure analysis (SRAG 2011, AFMA 2013). 

This species is an important shark for fisheries, especially off Uruguay and Argentina, California, and southern Australia, but it is also fished elsewhere where it occurs.It is caught with bottom and pelagic gillnets, bottom and pelagic longlines, bottom and pelagic trawls, and with hooks and lines. Fisheries in Australia and New Zealand have been restricted or have collapsed due to findings of high mercury levels in school sharks caught there (SRAG 2011, AFMA 2013).

Historically school shark was targeted using both hooks and gillnets in the Gillnet, Hook and Trap (GHAT) sector of the SESSF. Low levels of school shark catch has also been recorded in the Commonwealth Trawl Sector, although school shark has not been targeted using trawl methods and catches are sporadic in nature. Consequently, this Strategy focuses on gillnet and hook fishing methods in the SESSF (SRAG 2011, AFMA 2013).


ANALYSIS

Weaknesses

    SCORES

    Management Quality:

    Management Strategy:

    NOT YET SCORED

    Managers Compliance:

    NOT YET SCORED

    Fishers Compliance:

    NOT YET SCORED