DEEP-sea shark populations off north-west Europe are being devastated by unregulated fishing.
A report for the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES), which is meeting in Copenhagen this week, reveals that since 1992 some boats have been catching 40 tonnes of deep-water sharks per week, and that up to 15 such boats are operating at a time, catching fish 800 to 1200 metres down.
Because deep-sea sharks breed only slowly, they are particularly at risk from overfishing. Nils-Roar Hareide, the Norwegian fisheries consultant who is lead author of the ICES report, says stocks are thought to have…
