Greenland Fishermen's Shark Cull Plan Blocked Amid Conservation Concerns

Fishermen in Greenland's Avannaata municipality had sought to cull approximately 1,000 Greenland sharks, a species capable of living over 400 years and holding the title of the longest-living vertebrates on Earth. The plan, which included a bounty of $45 per shark heart, was approved by the municipality in February. Local fishermen cited significant financial losses due to the sharks interfering with their gear, with one fisherman estimating losses of around 30,000 Danish kroner (approximately $4,500) per day from damaged hooks.

"This year I’ve lost around 6,000 hooks in total. Sometimes we lose 30,000 Danish krone a day," said 27-year-old fisherman Henrik Jensen. Avannaata Mayor Lars Erik Gabrielsen stated, "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."

However, the culling measure was subsequently blocked by critics concerned about the impact on the Greenland shark population. These sharks are known for their extremely slow maturation, becoming sexually mature around 150 years old, and a gestation period believed to exceed a decade. Conservationists argue that these factors make the species highly susceptible to overfishing and slow to recover.

"They are probably — biologically — the most sensitive species in the ocean to overfishing," said Nick Dulvy, a marine conservationist at Simon Fraser University. In 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classified Greenland sharks as a "vulnerable" species.

Greenland sharks inhabit the cold coastal waters of Greenland, northern Canada, and Europe. The Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat (ONKN) organization has expressed reservations about the culling plan, suggesting that the sharks' extensive migratory patterns, covering up to 1,240 miles annually, could render culling efforts ineffective as new sharks would likely replace those removed. "Initiating a bounty system of this magnitude is a risky path," ONKN stated, cautioning that while the current proposal was blocked, similar measures could re-emerge.

Jenseeraq Poulsen, director of ONKN, suggested that the fishermen's complaints might point to deeper systemic issues within the fisheries, such as overfishing and an excessive number of boats, rather than solely the presence of sharks. "The shark is the visible, tangible version of a problem whose real drivers are structural," Poulsen commented.