Sandin et al. (2008) write: “The earliest historical descriptions of Kiritimati and Tabuaeran document an enormous abundance of sharks and other large fishes that persisted until the early to mid 20th century when declines became apparent. As recently as 1997, fish biomass at Kiritimati was double that observed in our study and was comprised of over 30% top predators, suggesting that large declines in the fish assemblage has occurred within just ten years as the human population rapidly increased due to deliberate relocation. Thus, the low fish biomass at these atolls most likely is due to fishing here, as in many places elsewhere.” “Over 50% of the reef fishery is composed of predatory species”. “The changes in reef fish assemblage structure are best described as a response to increased fishing pressure from Kingman to Kiritimati … Fishing pressure tends to disproportionately reduce densities of longer-lived, larger-bodied individuals … which are frequently from higher trophic levels”.
The Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) of NOAA, based in Honolulu, surveys coral reefs around all 50 of the U.S. Pacific islands and reefs, and has found similar patterns (Fig. 4). They found huge differences between unpopulated islands to the left in the graph and populated islands to the right. Further, the differences are largest for the apex predators.
The same pattern has been found in the Marianas chain in the northwestern Pacific. Studies by CRED of reef fish in Guam and the Marianas found that fish larger than 50 cm in length were much more abundant around the islands at the northern end of the chain (Fig. 5). Human population is concentrated on Guam and other islands at the southern end of the chain, while the middle and northern islands are uninhabited.
In the Indian Ocean, the Chagos archipelago near the center of the ocean has a large reef area, most of which has no people on it and has had little human influence for several decades. The unpopulated atolls have an average fish biomass that is orders of magnitude higher than anywhere else in the Indian Ocean, including MPAs, and as high as the highest level found yet in the Pacific (at Jarvis Island). The one atoll with people in Chagos, Diego Garcia, has lower biomass than the average of the atolls that lack people. The fish community is not heavily dominated by sharks as the reefs in the Pacific are, which may in part be due to a long history of shark poaching by outside fishermen (Graham and McClanahan, 2013 and Graham et al., 2013).
Some comparisons between fished and remote reefs may be open to many interpretations due to the many differences between the reefs. For instance, islands and reefs which have high abundances of big fish tend to be very small as well as have few people, while islands that have low abundances of fish not only have higher human populations, they also are much larger, high islands. Large islands have a number of other attributes which may affect fish populations compared to small islands or reefs, such as much more sediment and nutrient runoff. In a very few locations, some of these relationships can be broken, and the results can be very instructive. A good example is Rose Reef, a small reef just south of Guam. It has no island, and thus no people, and is small. As such, one might assume it would have lots of big fish, but it does not (Fig. 5). It is within easy reach of Guam. It is too far away for sediment, nutrients, or chemical pollution to reach from an island the size of Guam from which even sediment plumes do not reach. The low abundance of big fish on Rose Reef can only be explained by fishing.
Williams et al. (2011) document the patterns of reef fish around 39 islands and reefs in the U.S. Pacific, that is, Hawaii, Guam and the Marianas, American Samoa, and the remote U.S. islands. There are many details in the data that cannot be explained by fishing alone. That is to be expected, reef fish populations are affected by a wide variety of factors such as habitat, biogeographic location, and food sources. However, in each of the archipelagos, large fish were more abundant on remote, low population islands and reefs than on populated islands and reefs. Further, the effect shows a gradient with size. The effect is largest with the larger fish, and decreases with decreasing size fish. Small fish are a good control for the many effects of humans other than fishing. Habitat destruction, sediment, nutrients, and chemical pollution should all affect small fish as well as large, and we have no evidence to show they have differential effects on different sizes of fish. Fishing, however, is well documented to have much stronger effects on larger fish than on smaller fish. We know of no other way to explain the results other than by fishing. Further, the effects are present in each of the three archipelagos. Small fish were slightly more abundant on remote reefs than populated reefs, which could be because fish of those sizes are also taken by fishing, or because there are other human impacts that decrease fish abundance in addition to fishing (and thus affect all size fish). It makes sense that both fishing and other factors affect fish populations, but the data in this study show that the lion’s share of the effect on large fish is from fishing.
A study in Australia reports that while the Cocos-Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean (owned by Australia) and which have no fishing, have abundant sharks, sharks are much less abundant on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in areas open to fishing (which until recently was most of the reef) (Robbins et al., 2006). In the few tiny areas of the GBR where people are not allowed to go, sharks are abundant as in Cocos-Keeling (Fig. 6 and Fig. 7). Surprisingly, in areas where fishing is not allowed but people can go (“no-take” areas), sharks are in low abundance similar to that in areas where fishing is allowed. Apparently, people are poaching sharks in no-take Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and only no-go areas provide enough protection. The authors were able to measure the rate at which sharks are declining on the GBR, and it is rapid. Fishing in Queensland (where the GBR is) is controlled by the Queensland Department of Primary Industries. They claim they have tightened up regulations (now each fisherman is limited to possession of only one grey reef shark or white tip reef shark) so they say it is well regulated. Each fisherman is limited to possessing one reef shark per day, or a maximum of 365 a year, but anyone can kill all they want and throw them back. Another study (Heupel et al., 2009) used fish catches to measure Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) for reef sharks on the GBR. They found higher CPUE indicating more sharks in no-take areas of the park than in areas open to fishing. However, they did not report on no-go areas, or areas that have not had shark fishing. They report that CPUE has not been declining, indicating that populations may not have been declining. Usually, if you can observe and measure something directly like the underwater visual census used by Robbins et al. (2006), that is superior to indirect methods like CPUE, because the more indirect methods require assumptions that often are not, or cannot be, tested.
Robbins et al. (2006) wrote: “Our data suggest that for coral-reef sharks, immediate and substantial reductions in shark fishing will be required for their ongoing collapse to be reversed”. “Together, these findings indicate that extirpation of these species from fished coral-reef ecosystems is an immanent likelihood in the absence of substantial changes to coral-reef management”. “Inferred and projected declines such as ours appear sufficient to warrant “Critically Endangered” status under the IUCN Red List (A3d) criteria for this study area for both species”. “Moreover, the magnitude of the population decline is severe: Median rates of population decline are 7% per annum for whitetip reef sharks and 17% for grey reef sharks. If current population trends continue unabated, the abundance of whitetip reef sharks and grey reef sharks present on legally fished reefs will be reduced to only 5% and 0.1% respectively, of their present-day no-entry abundance levels within 20 years”.
The vulnerability of sharks is highlighted in this quote from Nichols (1993): “Sharks possess particular biological characteristics which render them especially susceptible to high fishing pressure, and as such, qualify them as a special case for management. As apex predators, they have few natural enemies. The biological characteristics of sharks – long lived, slow growth rates, low fecundity and reproductive rates (some species do not reproduce every year), long gestation period, relatively large size at first spawning, and strongly density dependent recruitment – result in shark fisheries being particularly sensitive to over-fishing”. Hilborn (2005) wrote: “Species that have few offspring (e.g., sharks and rays) or live a long time will intrinsically have a lower rate of increase”. “Long-lived and low-fecundity species are particularly prone to depletion because the exploitation rate that is sustainable is much lower”.
Similar findings have been reported from the Caribbean. Ward-Paige et al. (2010) used the massive database from trained REEF volunteer divers, using reports from over 76,000 underwater surveys, which is just the kind of survey data set needed to assess rare species. Significant numbers of sharks were found only in areas of very low human populations, or in very well protected areas. Nurse sharks were exceptional, being found near humans as well as farther away. Nurse sharks have low fishery value. Historical records report that sharks were plentiful in the past, as recently as the 1950s in some areas. Shark catches increased dramatically in recent decades in many places. For instance, landings of sharks in the Gulf of Mexico tripled between 1980 and